Experiments in Elasticity

It’s a long time since I did maths at university and considering that I managed to do one of the subjects twice, you’d think that I’d remember a little more of it. Sadly, what I remember amounts more to remembering the topics about which I now know I know nothing.

I couldn’t find the determinant of a matrix, let alone change its base. I know for a fact that I didn’t know what a Fourier Transform was when I did maths, so there’s no chance of me telling you what that’s all about now. And of course the only limit that I’d ever approach these days would either be the blood alcohol limit for driving of the limit of my own maths knowledge. I’ll let you decide which might be reached quicker.

Things I do remember from maths, whilst a significantly shorter list are infinitely more fun. Ask me some time about the Lumberjack Song or Burger King day.

But the thing that I’ve remembered off and on since leaving uni that I wanted to talk about today is a fragment of a lecture.

I remember one day that we were told that traffic flow could be simply (as in it’s a simplified model, not accurate or easy to do) with springs. Essentially, traffic flows as if there is a spring between each vehicle. When you think about it, it all seems perfectly natural. As the car in front of you accelerates, a gap opens up before you, stretching the spring. You speed up, shortening it again and if you over-accelerate, you compress the spring, closing the gap, potentially causing you to brake as they continue to accelerate again (stretching the string again).

It’s one of those tiny things that has always amused this small mind when I get into heavy traffic. And I just thought that I’d comment on it, because by God have I spent an inordinate amount of time in heavy traffic lately. Thinking time.

And when you’re stuck like that, it’s very tempting to experiment with the traffic’s elasticity, braking late, accelerating quickly and then jamming the brakes on again. I wonder if I could cause a traffic jam, just through random and erratic braking and acceleration patterns. My guess is that I could slow things a bit, but that I’m more likely just to piss everyone off and that the person behind me would just give me more room. At least until someone got in between us and I had a new victim.

But it’s not really worth trying because I’d be unable to gauge my success unless it made the radio.