Ancient Egyptians

I finished reading The Book of Birds by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris, and leaned out of my attic window to smoke and think about it, when there among the tumbling spires of the apple trees was a spasm of fluttering and a flurry of notes: two spotted flycatchers! One held the air for a moment, hovering and looking me in the eye, and then darted back to its perch while the other called. It has been years since we have seen them, and straight to my bird books I went. The Book of Birds was no help because it does not include the spotted flycatcher and is not designed as a recognition guide. Instead, Macfarlane writes: ‘Ours is a field guide with a difference... It asks not “What is that bird?” but “Who is that bird?”. The aim is to help readers identify with them.

The fundamental purpose of science is to view the world from a different perspective. In the age of modern science, however, in which each academic discipline represents a world in itself, this is hard to remember. The field of ‘tribology’ would appear to be a perfect example. But such opacity is merely a front for the study of friction. And, according to Jennifer R. Vail, friction is ‘the unsung hero of the material world’. Why? Because ‘the way we experience the world, whether through greater efficiency, flight or space exploration, has been shaped by our understanding of friction’. Indeed, ‘our relationship with friction dates back to one of humanity’s greatest discoveries: fire’. How’s that?