Big Thoughts - The Ground Beneath Our Feet
Let me tell you a story.
A young boy was in his front garden waiting for his dad to take him to Scouts when he noticed a small hole in the lawn. Baffled, he tried to work out what it was, but it was difficult to tell in the gathering darkness. When his dad eventually appeared, he raced to the car and forgot all about the mystery.
So it came as something of a surprise when, next morning, he looked out of his window and saw that half his front garden had disappeared. Where he'd been standing the evening before, there was nothing but space. The small hole had become a gaping chasm.
And it didn’t stop there. Over the course of the day, more and more of the front garden fell into the hole. The boy offered to climb down to see how deep it went but, for some reason, his parents wouldn't let him. When, eventually, the hole stopped expanding the whole family peered tentatively over the edge. They couldn't see the bottom. The boy gulped, knowing he’d had a lucky escape.
That's a true story. The boy was me. The hole was the remains of a chalk mine in our front garden. (It was filled in eventually.)
All of which is a long introduction to this week's Big Thoughts.
Here’s a short video about Hagoromo Fulltouch, the Rolls Royce of chalk:
And here’s some information about mystery, truth, and beauty on mathematicians' chalkboards: https://press.princeton.edu/ideas/finding-mystery-truth-and-beauty-on-mathematicians-chalkboards
And, finally, here is some chalk-inspired art from Sussex: https://pallant.org.uk/whats-on/sussex-landscape-chalk-wood-and-water/
I hope you enjoy what you see and read.