It’s common knowledge that it takes a photon about 8 minutes to travel the 150 million km to the earth from the surface of the sun, but did you know that it takes A MILLION YEARS to travel the 696 thousand km from the center of the sun to the surface? The reason is not due to the sun’s gravitational field, but due to the path the photon takes, zigzagging randomly as it is absorbed and reemitted by plasma particles. This was one of the interesting facts from the How…read more
In 2001 I moved to a coastal town in Northern Italy and was instantly captivated by the mystery and majesty of the neoprene clad freedivers that frequent the rocky shoreline in search of the tranquility, beauty and fish that await below the surface. A quick internet search clarified that I was in one of the historical epicenters of the sport, and the waters around Portofino had been used for decades for record attempts. Altavista also brought Luc Besson’s 1988 epic The Big Blue to my attention, and I was instantly…read more
In Born to Run McDougall explains the role that running may have played in our evolution. Classic evolutionary theory considers our bodies to me little more than a weak container for our big brains and dexterous hands. After all, we’re weaker, slower, and less capable at climbing than almost ever other animal, including our own primate ancestors. Everything can outrun us, and so the idea that we evolved from apes in order improve our running ability is surely laughable. As one of the scientists quoted in the book puts it…read more
I’m reading Christopher McDougall’s Born to Run. What a book! A hidden tribe, super-athletes and the greatest race the world has never seen. Cool stuff, but it was ‘only’ entertaining until the Chapter on barefoot running and the story of Nike. Here are some highlights : 1. Running shoes were invented around the same time as the first Space Shuttle Launch 2. Nike co-founder (and non-runner) Bill Bowerman created the market in book called Jogging in which he claimed that throwing the foot out in front of the body and…read more
Did you ever read an article, watch a TV show or hear a story from a wise-woman and think “I’ll have to remember that”, only to promptly forget it? I do it all the time, and so I thought I’d start to document these snippets of shiny goldy colored information, if only to remind myself what a crappy memory I’m got… You can follow along if you’re interested. Much of what I write will be from other online sources, but I hope to mix it with original material.