How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
[Renfrew] stepped back from the tilting walls, squinted, and saw that the lines of his home were askew. You put down the money on a place, he reflected, and you get a maze of jambs and beams and cornices, all pushed slightly out of true by history. A bit of settling in that corner, a diagonal misaimed there. (10.2)
Time changes Renfrew's house, but notice that Renfrew hasn't noticed the changes while they are happening. That's how subtle the changes are—the only way he can adequately view them was to build shelves with mathematical, geometric precision and notice disconnects between his building and the house. Is the novel suggesting that only math and science can reveal true change to us?
Quote #5
[Gordon] smiled wanly as the thought struck him that he had now joined the legion of the genuinely transplanted; California was now here, other people were from there. New York was more a different idea than a different place. (13.1)
If change is dependent upon the observer, then it must also depend upon where that observer is doing his or her observing. As such, concepts like change and truth will vary depending on where you consider here versus there.
Quote #6
"Not that simple," Gordon said, shaking his head. But to himself he had to grudgingly admit that there was some truth to what she said. Assign symbols, making the x's and y's and z's the unknowns, then rearrange. Made-to-order thinking. They were all used to it and maybe it hid some elements of the problem, if you weren't careful. Dyson, for all his wisdom, could be dead wrong, simply because of habits of mind. (19.90)
Change is important in the novel because it is the only way for humanity to progress. On the large scale, change is required to fix the ecological disasters in the year 1998, but on the small scale, change is necessary so that humans can progress at their various enterprises. By changing how he thinks about scientific development, Gordon takes steps toward a world-changing scientific discovery.