Phenomena Series - 1

I had this idea for a li'l theme of sorts to set random posts. These are just things I think of during the day--the first of these are while driving.

I thought of this when a friend of mine blogged about a pretty awesome occurrence in that fraction of time that all of an intersection's stoplights are red. Go take a look. It's somewhere amongst her many posts.

Anyway, I want to give it a shot.

Phenomenon #1:
When a crowded, speeding, handful of cars on a freeway sees a single police car that has pulled over a hapless victim, the throng slows down. Then speeds up a little ways down the road when they forget about what they saw.
"Poor guy. I'm glad it wasn't me," they all think.
The poor guy thought the same thing once.

Phenomenon #2:
This is more of an observed physics phenomenon. The cars on a freeway don't move, if you look at it a certain way. Just a tiny increment of speed -- single miles-pers-hours-es -- are what creates and closes gaps. It's not that one car is going 64 mph and another cruising at a cheery 60. In a sense, one car is going 0, the other is going 4.

The only thing that lets you, yourself, know that you are moving is the whizzing by of the opposite lane's traffic, and of the orange construction cones (this is Utah County I've been driving in...). On that note, physics makes it seem like those cars are flying by at 120 mph. Impressive.

It's basically a cool perspective to take on whilst on a freeway. Too bad accidents don't happen at those negligible speeds. They kind of start moving when they crash into each other.


I had a Phenomenon #3, but I can't remember it. Tiredness overcomes me sometimes. This is a sometime.
I'll remember and continue the series.

Thanks for reading.