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Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Slow and steady wins the race

I've been thinking a lot recently about time scales, how quickly and/or slowly things happen, and how we humans perceive that.

Look at how slowly this mudslide happens!!!! Way more slowly than I thought mudslides would ever happen. This is from southern italy, where 200 residents were evacuated to avoid this really slow mud.



According to howstuffworks.com, mudslides can sometimes reach speeds of up to 60 miles per hour. The speed of the mudslide increases as the soil contains more water or the slope is more steep. So, just based on what we can see visually from this video, the mud looks a lot like dirt, meaning there is not much water, and the slope is not that steep, so it makes sense that this mudslide is relatively slow. It also makes sense that the slower a mudslide is, the more likely it is to be caught on video, which might be one reason that this is the only mudslide video i can find on the internet. EVERYTHING MAKES SENSE!!!!!!!