Today's epiphany was that riding in the history of my life has been very much like physics in the history of my life.
My dad, the physicist, is naturally good at physics. My trainer, the best rider I've ever known, is naturally good at riding. (Though they both might argue that it took them lots of work over lots of time to get "naturally good".) Which means as I struggle along with them, I get frustrated and cry easily. For both. Which is embarrassing, now that I'm over 30.
Like physics, I have to struggle very hard at riding to "get" a certain concept, and once I get it, my only reward is to get another glimpse of how much more there is to get. I will never be a physicist, nor a professional rider.
Unlike physics, an object in motion, especially if it is Mercury, does not tend to stay in motion.
However, very much like what I think are quarks, when riding Willig, I tend to either know the velocity or the location of him, which is to say, I can either steer OR go the proper speed, but not both at the same time.
For both though, as with anything that takes effort, the rewards, though they may be few and far between, certainly make me feel I have earned them.
Charlie with the long sought after cooler
Spring NWEC 2013 Novice
1 comment:
martha, when you said "quark," you were describing Heisenberg's uncertainty principle: in quantum mechanics, the principle says you can't know a quantum particle's position and its velocity simultaneously with arbitrarily high precision. this is an interesting application to horses, which are not the size particles one usually associates with quantum mechanics
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