Thursday, February 27, 2003

Walk or... swim?



When I left my front door this morning I didn't have a good idea how far I was going to go. The forrest behind my house extends hundreds of miles. I filled my water bag, put some food in my pockets, grabbed the camera, and strapped snowshoes to my feet. As I went up into the hills I thought a lot about people, and about physics -- particularly about triality, a special symmetry that only happens in eight dimensions, because it might be relevant to a geometric description for the three generations of particles that we see.

After a while, a couple of miles in, there wasn't much sign of civilization around.

And the snow kept coming down, getting deeper (that thing down in the hole is the top of a ski pole).

Further along, I kicked up my snowshoes and had lunch.

A little while after that, pressing onwards, things just started getting silly -- it became very difficult to make any headway at all.

So I had to turn back. The hike back, mostly downhill, and through the trench I'd left, went much faster. Or maybe it was because I was strongly motivated, with one thing on my mind...

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.

[Prev | Index | Next]

gar@lisi.com