Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
The ocean’s ‘circle of life’
ate away from their source to arrive at distant shores.
Centrifugal force – thanks gravity and atmospheric weight – is key. Humankind has fashioned their existence from multiple clones of this very shape. The laws of physics demand it. Certainly, wheels need that hole in the centre. Where else would you put the axle? Same for the rotating cogs that drive many of the machines of industry. All around us, stuff spins, even your head if you get tipsy. In your bath, water spins around a plug hole. In your toilet, the water rushes out in a circular fashion. When you spin a spinning top, something called rotational inertia keeps it absolutely motionless.
There is a total lack of motion inside the eye of cyclones. Similarly, if you were to stand on the same spot on the North or South Pole, you would take 24 hours to turn very slowly around with the earth. Standing at the equator, you’d in effect travel at roughly 1700 km/hr to cover a distance that is effectively the circumference of the earth (almost 40 000 kilometres). Luckily for you, gravity and atmosphere prevents you from careening off our spinning sphere.
Our mythology and poetry and art is steeped in reference to gyres and spirals. Take the Ouroboros – the ancient Greek symbol of a serpent eating its own tail, which represents the eternal return “in the sense of something constantly re-creating itself. It also represents the infinite cycle of nature’s endless creation and destruction, life and death”, according to Wikipedia.
We talk about the music of the spheres, and have deep and meaningful discussions about the eternal golden braid. We speak of recursive musical notes that meet at the top and bottom of the scale. Go figure. Let’s not talk of the illusory glitches you find in the etchings of Escher that lead somewhere but nowhere.
William Butler Yeats wrote about the “widening gyre” that leads to things that fall apart when “the centre cannot hold”. Noel Harrison sang Windmills of the Mind, also covered by Sting: “Round like a circle in a spiral; Like a wheel within a wheel; Never ending nor beginning; On an ever spinning reel.”
The spiral we see in our mind’s eye spins in decreasing concentric circles (like a synoptic chart) towards its eye like the snake that grips the Orphic or “cosmic egg”, which features in the creation myth of many cultures. The Orphic egg hatched the primordial deity Zeus, and Poseidon was his brother.
Bring on the storms! Let it rain!
Home-grown WSL commentator Gigs Celliers went to the US on business and ended up winning the US Kneeboard Titles at Huntington Beach recently. It was fitting for Celliers, who returned to Huntington 22 years after he won the world titles there. Not bad for an old ballie.
It was fun riding in the beautiful Breedekloof valley near Worcester with Erik Kleinhans, team leader of Germany based Topeak Ergon Racing team, on the MTB trail at Du Toits Kloof winery that will form part of the Gravel and Grape race and ABSA Cape Epic in March. Let me rephrase that. It was great riding (a long way) behind Kleinhans.
A stiff southerly wind builds today as a new 4-6’ south swell arrives, peaking this afternoon. This does not help the Muizenberg side, which will be strong onshore and broken up, despite a potential 2-4’ swell in the bay. Winds and swell direction better for the other side, but not idea. Tomorrow, similar swell runs a little smaller, with fresh to strong SE winds.