It's a Matter of Time

Time (t)

t=s/v

Distance (s) Speed (v) acceleration (a)

s=vt v=s/t a=v/t

A Grand Prix motorcycle circles the track. After level pegging for most of the race, its average lap time is compared with the other competitors and found to be 0.2 seconds quicker than the next fastest. With a top speed recorded on the longest straight of 100 metres per second (m/s) - that's over 200mph - it's right up there with the best, but it's still not primo top-speed. But the bike is winning – so, it must be going quicker through the bends. If it carries on like this, by the time the race finishes in five laps time, the motorcycle will have won by a margin of one second. It covers the final lap in 50 seconds, winning with an average speed of 50m/s (during this lap). This means that the track is 2500 metres in length. As the machine in second place is 0.2 seconds slower over this distance, its average speed, therefore, is 49.98m/s. Prediction, calculation and evaluation; all possible because of time.

Time: the only proper constant in the world we understand. While everything we can see and touch can vary, time is the truly independent ingredient. Time gives the fixed marker posts of change; a uniform grid over which all that happens in life is laid. Unlike anything else in our everyday perception of the world, it never varies. Everything you can physically see changes at differing rates, because of time, and are only quantifiable because time is unvarying and constant. Time is both the base and the dimension that provides the measure of life. Without time there would be no comparison of events – change would be unquantifiable and unpredictable. Our deterministic world could not function without the concept of time.

Time is sometimes referred to as the fourth dimension because to find meaning in the words, faster, slower, quicker, a perceptible but intangible benchmark is required, one that exists outside the world we see. Imagine you have no recognition of time. A truck overtakes you on the motorway, he's in front of you, so he will arrive before you. How do you arrive first? Your truck must get in front of his, but how do you get the front of your truck ahead? The simple answer is to increase speed. But time doesn't exist, so neither does speed.

When speed increases or decreases, it simply means the distance travelled changes in a fixed period of time. When we accelerate or decelerate, the distance travelled in a fixed period of time changes in a fixed period of time. Using the standard (SI) units of time and space, metres and seconds, a truck travelling at a speed of 13m/s, travels 13 metres every second. If it accelerates at a rate of 2 metres per second, per second (m/s/s), its speed will increase by 2 metres per second every second. So, if a truck travelling at 13 m/s accelerates at a rate of 2 m/s/s, after 1 second it will be travelling at 15 m/s, after 2 seconds, its speed will have increased to 17 m/s.

Time permits change in the physical world; speed, acceleration and interest on savings are all changes in things we can touch. Time makes change relative. When you next overtake another truck on the motorway, think about it. A 16.5 metre artic attempts to pass another. The distance needed from the front of the overtaking vehicle passing the rear of the other, to its rear passing the front of the other, is 33 metres. This is an absolute minimum and takes no account of the extra distance required to turn back to the lane in front of the overtaken truck. You are averaging 56mph, he's averaging 55mph. The difference is about 0.5m/s. The time needed is 66 seconds, just over a minute. In that time you will have travelled over 1650 metres, a little more than a mile.

So, by overtaking, you gain just over 30 metres for every mile travelled, and it takes about a minute. At 56mph, a 200 mile journey will take 3 hours 34 minutes. Or, 3 hours and 38 minutes had you sat behind the other lorry. Four minutes: a motorcycle on an A road would cover 4 miles – at 60mph; a mile a minute. Roger Bannister could change position by a mile. A Grand Prix motorcycle, travelling at over 200mph would have overtaken your truck in just under a second. (As the comparison is between your truck and the motorcycle, the relative change in distance is 16.5 metres, plus 2 metres for the length of the bike.) And, at 200mph, the race bike would arrive at the end of the 200 mile journey no less than two and a half hours before your truck (had you both started in the same place and, of course, at the same time). That's enough time for a serious athlete to run a marathon. It's all a matter of time.         

Spotted

We're driving along a quiet coast road that's also bordered by a railway line. My good lady spots a group of men in anoraks, all fondling binoculars and notebooks. They're waiting for something; hoping that whatever it is will soon appear and make their lives just a little more complete, on this day at least. “Stop”, she yells. It's a command I cannot ignore. We pull over and she rushes back along the road to the group, not even remembering to close the car door such is her concentration, her devotion, her passion. My wife, you see, is a birder. Is this is a twitch she just can't ignore? Is it an unfortunate sea bird blown in from some far away shore; a poor creature who should by rights never touch English sand? No. In no time at all she slumps back into the passenger seat beside me. “Train spotters” she exclaims. “Train spotters”, she repeats, incredulously. “Train spotters”. There it is again, only now she's shaking her head in disbelief. “What is the point?” She says, as we drive off leaving the anoraks staring along the rails; happy, oblivious.

Meet Roger, he collects small pieces of paper no bigger than a postage stamps. Well, that's because they are postage stamps, if they weren't they would be just small pieces of paper no bigger than postage stamps, and who would collect those? Well, I bet someone would. But what would be the point, at least stamps represent something: far off places, travel, history, great people, important events from a particular time and place. Collecting small pieces of paper could be nice, though. You could divide them into different categories: colours and materials, for example, glossy, newsprint and so on. And put them into binders labelled, 'Small pieces of paper, waste bin, European, 2010 onwards'. Used stamps are themselves just old small pieces of paper, they're useless, they no longer serve any purpose. Except that it's nice to collect them.

Alan is obsessed with Eddie Stobart. He not only collects models of the famous fleet of trucks, he buys anything related to the company. Alan has a room in his home dedicated to Stobart, it's filled with posters, books and even toys bearing the 'Stobart' logo. He is particularly keen to acquire the names the company gives to each of its vehicles. He's often seen standing on motorway bridges close to where he lives, hoping to photograph a passing Stobart lorry; hoping to write down another name. Holidays are spent in part travelling the country's motorways from service station to service station, lorry park to lorry park in the heady anticipation of seeing and recording. Alan is so dedicated to the pursuit of all things Eddie Stobart, you would think his life depended on on it.

I think, over the years, I've accumulated tools for just about every conceivable job you could come across in a truck workshop. I've even got Whitworth sockets. There are quarter, three-eights, half inch, and three-quarter drive ratchets; and spanners of all sorts, too many to mention. They're good kit too, Smap-on and Britool, and I literally love them all. I keep them in tool chests that take up half a wall at one end of the shop; chests that cost an arm and a leg. And I know where every tool is, what shelf, in which drawer. They are all clean and oiled, and laid out neatly. I'm very particular about that: I don't like disorder and I don't like corrosion of any kind. With my tools I can deal with anything that comes along; complete any job; put food on the table.

The Bounty of Mutiny

I look forward to Sundays, the relaxation and reflection, a big family meal; a sort of regrouping after the corporate life that otherwise dominates. It's really all about revolution and rebellion against those that dictate outside that important union we call Home. On Sundays I like to rewrite history. With those close to me always willing to listen, accepting my preferred view, I give a wholly prejudiced version of the life I lead during the week. The boss, colleagues: my accounts of their actions are all skewed to the way I wish them to be seen. And not only do my loved ones absorb these tales without question, no others will actually do for them. My story, it seems, is also their's. It's a mutiny that produces the bounty of enhanced self esteem and unity. Sunday is a day when all is made to appear right, and in this way the bit of land I call Home becomes the most right of all.

And on Sundays there are the papers, which, in line with my  own philosophy, as much as anything else, usually focus on family life and the home. There are gardens and beautiful properties to dream about, lifestyle articles and feelgood features to mull over. But this week's Sunday Times magazine also included a tale of rebellion - and some rewriting of history - in a piece that followed the last moments of a film prop, a full size replica of HMS Bounty, lost late in 2012 after being caught by hurricane Sandy. Built in the 1960s for a Hollywood account of the famous mutiny (starring Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard) the ship had since been used as some sort of tourist attraction. Her loss resulted in the tragic death of two people: the captain and a descendant of Fletcher Christian, the most remembered, and canonized mutineer.

The film, Mutiny on the Bounty, was pure fiction in the way it portrayed the ship's captain, William Bligh, and in doing so, capitalised on the myth that Bligh was a martinet. William Bligh suffered three rebellions in his life: the now famous Bounty mutiny; Spithead, when a whole fleet revolted; and an insurrection when he served as governor of New South Wales. Put into context, mutiny was not uncommon in Bligh's time and considering the attraction of life in the warm Pacific islands where everything seemed available and in abundance, including women, it's no wonder many of the Bounty's crew preferred to stay rather than return to England. In the film's rewritten history, a fictional Bligh has been created as a cruel and poor commander, and attributed with an arrogance that precluded proper leadership.  His conflict with Christian is made all the more fascinating, and profitable, by antics invented by the cinema. 

The truth is that Bligh, having served with Cook on his expeditions to the Pacific, understood men and the sea very well. Like Cook he used a three watch system, unlike many other captains in the Royal Navy, which gave his men more rest. He even understood the need for exercise on such a long voyage and ordered the crew to dance. He used corporal punishment sparingly by comparison with many of his contemporaries. Bligh's seamanship and judgement were proven by his navigation of the Bounty in her attempt to round Cape Horn, through storm force winds, and finally by his voyage of over 3,000 miles in an open boat after being removed from Bounty by Christian and his mutineers. Bligh lost one man on that incredible journey, the result of an attack by natives. Bligh and his achievements, both on the Bounty and afterwards in the open boat, are far more interesting than any American film-maker's portrayal of the mutiny.

History is rewritten time after time but the motive is sometimes more than to simply provide an entertaining story. There's the home audience to consider. American film directors, it would appear, spend a lot of time at home on Sundays. Ever since the United States won the Second World War single handed the achievements of other nations, and in particular the British, have been ignored. (Recently Hollywood implied to the world it was the US Navy and not the Royal Navy, as history has it, that captured the first German Enigma machine.) And now they've awarded themselves an Oscar for the film Argo, a cinematic untruth set in 1979 that claims that six escaping American hostages were turned away by the British in Tehran, before seeking refuge with the Canadians. In reality, and in a story far more exciting than the film tells, British embassy staff rescued the men, hiding them in several safe houses, until finally, they managed to leave the country. Once again, truth is far more entertaining than fiction. While the film has the CIA saving the day, the men were initially rescued by a few British embassy staff in an orange Austin Maxi motor car.

As an act of self inflation, on par with Idi Amin declaring himself King of Scotland, the Americans seem to have lost the plot, literally. In the piece in the Sunday Times magazine, the one about the replica Bounty, there's a photograph of her sailing under full canvas. It's a magnificent sight, but maybe one that can only be appreciated at home. The ship, of course, is a fiction: HMS Bounty in all her glory, a Stars and Stripes ensign fluttering in the breeze.

Round the Bend

Sadly, the number of serious accidents each year in the UK remains high,  despite an emphasis on road safety from both our government and the EU,  and recent advances in vehicle technology.

One aspect of driving that continues to be a problem area is cornering.  But it's not always simply driving round a bend - the physical act of the vehicle being steered in a curved path that is too tight for its speed is the real issue, and that can happen even on a straight road.  

Sometimes it's a sudden lane change on a motorway - a swerve.  Or a late decision to use an exit slip road - from the outside lane in some cases.  But whatever the cause, the driver should always think of the Friction Circle, an illustration of the finite nature of friction and how the Laws of Physics apply to us all.

Even with ESC (Electronic Stability Control) a car is not infallible - the Laws are still there.  Each tyre has a maximum amount of friction available, which can be used for cornering, driving and braking, or, as in most cases, a combination of cornering and one of the other two.

This is an extremely important point and it affects all vehicles (although it seems to cause more problems with the drivers of front wheel drive cars).

The friction circle shows that if you are braking hard, you have little or no friction left for cornering.  ABS disguises this by extending the braking distance while allowing cornering to continue.  Without ABS, the wheels lock and the vehicle goes in a straight line - at maximum braking. 

And don't forget - the Laws of Physics always apply.  ABS, traction control and ESC are all limited by nature.

1. The vehicle is cornering hard and the driver, probably realising the speed is too great, applies the brakes.  The vehicle pushes out.  2. The vehicle is travelling too fast for the bend and the driver lifts of the accelerator.  On this FWD vehicle, friction that was being used for drive is 'given back' to the front tyres, so their cornering ability (relationship between cornering force and slip angle) increases. The vehicle 'cuts in'.  Weight is also transferred forward, adding to the cornering ability of the front tyres.  At high speeds, this can happen very quickly and the driver's reaction - to counter steer, rapidly - can send the vehicle completely out of control.  3.  While approaching the bend, the driver brakes to the correct speed for the bend, selects the right gear for the speed, and then drives through.  Tyre friction is being used mostly for cornering with very little needed for drive - perfect.  4. The driver accelerates hard in the bend and the front tyres take friction from cornering - the car understeers out. 

Beside the Seaside

The consensus of opinion was that the company wouldn't last the year out. They were being battered by the union, the sun was rising in the East and the shareholders, as shareholders did, expected a better return. Most of the management were present that day, seated around the boardroom table, and to a man they could see what was coming: the dark cloud looming. They had all lived through worse and understood the feeling of impending doom; the approaching storm and the hardships that would follow. Grimshaw still covered his mouth with a carefully placed hand when he spoke, in an effort to cover scars that resulted from his awful burns. The youngest there by far, he always wore garishly chequered suits with a bright handkerchief tucked in the jacket's top pocket; a deflection, everyone thought. And there was Allinson, a haggard looking and twitchy forty-something who always voiced approval with the words, 'I'll drink to that'. They were all in some way Allinsons and Grimshaws; live for the moment that's what they'd learnt, and they all bore the scars in one form or other. Allinson said the brass hats didn't understand what was going on at the front, and that was the problem. They'd have to dig in until support arrived or it all blew over. Grimshaw, speaking from behind a hand raised to his mouth, told them that if better kit wasn't made available and the men didn't play the game, they would be lost for sure. It was as simple as that, he said. There were nods all round. They would need to stand firm, he said, and got up from his seat and walked to a small table in the corner of the room, one that was always laid out with numerous bottles. All around the room hung the portraits of those who had 'commanded' before; a dusty display of heredity, position and place. “I'll drink to that”, Allinson said, and slumped in his chair, stretching his legs out under the table.

The factory floor was always swept clean; the chassis were lined up in neat rows, in time honoured fashion; and the men moved among them, in and out, following channels worn into the floor by generations of workers before. In the canteen the talk was of new motorcycles from BSA and Triumph, the latest music and all the newfangled gadgets coming across the sea from America. On the walls, posters advertised saving schemes and premium bonds. Everyone knew the price that had been paid and the debt they were owed. The war was still very fresh in everyone's memory. They believed they had prevailed against great odds and were undefeated; the country was the best; produced the best; deserved the best. They thought, as victors, they were owed a better life, and because the country had been saved by everyone fighting together the old establishment should be washed away, like castles made of sand on the beach. Wage demands and the threat of strikes were always present, even when it became obvious overseas competition was a serious threat. Talk of closure had started to filter down from above. Rumour, that's what they thought; it was all just rumour. But soon things got serious and a wave of panic started; and, of course, the questions. Who was responsible, and why? In the end there was speculation about mergers, Government interventions and co-operatives; all materialised to some extent or other, but non worked.

At home the women carried on as normal; very little had changed for them. Their work was the same as it always had been. Making ends meet, raising a family, keeping things afloat, looking after the home. Such as they were in those days. Terraced houses with outside toilets and fires you had to make each morning; no microwaves or fridges, or any of the things we have these days that make life easier. Except for the occasional holiday by the sea, if you were lucky, life for the women had changed little since the end of war. Rationing had continued for ages and they still had the worry; it was just a different worry, that was all. And when, in the end, when the factory closed, it was the women that had to keep things together. Trouble seemed to come in waves; some days rougher than others. If anyone deserved a holiday, they did.

It was all right for me, though. I was only young then and a secretary at the factory. I had to take minutes at management meetings but at the same time I was from the same streets the workers came from, so I knew the boardroom as well as I did the shopfloor. I lived at home with my parents in a little two up, two down and had no real responsibilities to speak of. For all my knowledge of the company, I didn't really appreciate the extent of the concerns people had about the future, and, I suppose, I was too young and naive to understand. I was a child in the war, you see. I couldn't fully appreciate what the grown-ups had endured; everyone had a story to tell that involved some sort of loss, no matter how small. I was always thinking about holidays and coming here. To me at that time there seemed little else to look forward to; what else did we have but the seaside?

She was sitting on a bench on the seafront close to my truck and we had somehow just got talking. I was waiting for a machine that a construction company was using for some foundation work to be ready for loading and she seemed to be in no hurry to move on. She was old, probably in her mid to late seventies, and immaculate in every way, which made her look more like visiting gentry or a retired headteacher than a retired secretary. “More changes”? She said, looking at the works going on nearby. “Yes”, I said. “Everything changes, thankfully”. She looked at a loss for something to say. “More work for people like me”, I explained. She glanced at my truck and its low-loader trailer, and then screwed her lips into what I took to be a smile. But then someone caught her eye and she stood up. A smartly dressed man, probably a few years her senior, was approaching us. He was wearing a brightly coloured sports jacket and a pair of brogues that almost glowed burgundy. With a matching handkerchief flamboyantly draped from the jacket's top pocket, he looked a little over dressed among the more retiring of that seaside retirement stronghold. She said her goodbyes and took his arm as he nodded an acknowledgement to me, carefully holding, I noticed, a hand over his mouth. 

This Sign is Not in Use

It must be one of the strangest signs you see on the road. THIS SIGN IS NOT IN USE it informs you – and with considerable effort if the forty-foot gantry post and all that expensive electrical equipment is anything to go by. But why? The sign seems to be telling you to ignore it; which you would have had it not grabbed your attention with an enormous message suspended above two lanes of the carriageway. If it's got nothing else to say, why not display: JUNCTION 25 35 MILES 30 MINUTES, which could be useful if it didn't assume an average speed of 70 mph, a speed at which few vehicles actually travel. DON'T DRIVE TIRED has replaced DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE now that most people have got that message, so it could be used to encourage drivers to take a break. 

There is a problem with these messages, though, in that they sound like an order. Whenever controls are imposed, something inside us reacts to make any limit seem like a challenge. If we can't avoid it, we'll exploit it. In this way a limit becomes a target; if it's not possible to exceed, then it must be reached. I'm sure this behaviour is deeply rooted in instinct, and that all animals have it. My Labrador will eat anything, all day if I let her; any survival expert will tell you, eat whenever you can, it may be your last meal for a while. It's this trait that supermarkets exploit when they offer special deals. Four bottles of beer for a fiver; which makes you pick up more than you wanted, or is probably good for you. Buy one, get one free; when we all know one could be sold cheaper. We snap it up. Logic says it must be a sales pitch but our minds won't let us see it that way. That thing inside us all which says we must get as much as possible, straight away, concludes that a limit has been set and we must go to that limit. The fact that we believe it's a bargain, clinches it. Subtly, we have been convinced that this is the most we'll be able to have, and we are left with only one option: 'go for it now'.

Drive down any country lane and you will see car drivers hurtling along at speeds where no margin is left for error. Too fast for the width of the road and the view available through the bends, while thinking they can travel at the speed limit of 60mph. Tachograph hours can cause the same type of confusion: 4.5 hours driving without a break is permitted under the regulations when, according to the road safety charity BRAKE, we shouldn't drive for more than 2 hours without stopping.  And there's the problem: by implementing tachograph regulations the law has created a limit.  One that we chase, often ignoring other signs that tell us something might be wrong, all in the false belief that we must use every minute of driving time, immediately.  DON'T DRIVE TIRED doesn't seem such a bad instruction after all.

Normal sleep does not occur without warning and most people would recognize the signs of its approach: increased difficulty concentrating; yawning; heavy eyelids; eyes starting to ‘roll’; and neck muscles relaxing, making the head droop. Winding down the window, listening to music and talking to a passenger do not help prevent sleep, although they may temporarily help us to stay alert until we find somewhere safe to stop. Again, according to BRAKE, 'microsleeps' of about 10 minutes seem to be the answer, so a 15 minute break followed by a 30 minute break around a couple of hours later (permitted by the tachograph regulations) might be what's needed to both comply with the law and allow us to respond to the signs our body is giving. Signs we simply can't afford to ignore.

It could be that all signs have a genuine message. Maybe by displaying, THIS SIGN IS NOT IN USE instead of simply remaining blank, those gantry signs are telling us that they can't warn us, and their real message is: THERE JUST MIGHT BE A PROBLEM AHEAD.

Dreamtime

“Perhaps he couldn't see the wood for the trees”, Bernard said, looking at the sergeant, a faint smile appearing on his lips. The sergeant bent forward and placed the palm of his right hand on the only part of the Nissan's roof that was still flat, steadying himself as he looked through the remains of the driver's door. There was warmth in the metal from the late afternoon sun. Bernard stood a few yards away and only had to stoop to see the driver's blood stained head wedged between the steering wheel and a windscreen crushed by the front of the roof during the impact. The torso seemed to be wrapped in deformed  plastic and metal that had once been a dashboard and engine bulkhead. They both focused on the driver’s eyes. Dead, young eyes; half closed, fixed, dull. “Any smell of booze in there”? Bernard said. “You know what they're like”. The sergeant looked past the driver's head and saw his own face reflected in the few remaining pieces of a twisted and broken mirror mounted on the outside of the passenger door opposite. His eyes went back at the driver before he stood up and faced Bernard. “Sorry”, Bernard said.

The Nissan, a small flat-bed truck, a 'tray', they called them, was trapped underneath the rear semi-trailer of a 'pocket' roadtrain. The Nissan had been travelling along the main route, the roadtrain, loaded with logs, was leaving a track from a forestry site, turning across the small truck's path. Paramedics had been and gone, there was nothing they could do, and the driver of the roadtrain was now talking to some local officers, as Bernard and the sergeant began their investigation. The enormous forest formed a backdrop that climbed a low escarpment in the distance; a mass of greens and browns set against the clear blue sky. The sergeant looked to the distant trees; there was a breeze up there making some of the branches sway. “Any sign of braking?” Bernard asked, walking slowly back down the road a short way, studying the dusty surface over which the Nissan would have travelled. It wasn't long before he sauntered  back. “There's no marks”, he said. “What about the tyres”? Bernard crawled under the trailer as he spoke, intent on getting a closer look. The Nissan had been dragged sideways after going  under the roadtrain and there were marks on the road to show this movement, but nothing else: no additional heat scarring on the tyres themselves that might have shown the Nissan's driver was braking before the collision. The sergeant followed Bernard's movements with an occasional glance but remained standing beside the dead driver, his hand still resting on the roof above the body.

“The brake light bulbs might tell us something”, Bernard said, pulling a multi-tool from a pouch attached to his trouser belt. He flipped out the Philips driver and began removing the rear light lenses. “If the filaments are stretched it may indicate the lights were on; their metal hot”, he said. But neither bulb showed any sign that they were on during a sudden deceleration. “Both broken but not stretched”, Bernard sounded disappointed. “The sun may have been low, maybe it was shining in his eyes, so he couldn't see”. Bernard seemed to be talking to himself. “Mind you", he said. "The locals say there were some clouds about, so the sun might not have been out when it happened”. The sergeant just looked past him, still gazing towards the distant hills. There would be kangaroos up there, you could imagine them foraging as dusk approached, now the real heat of the day had gone. “How long do you think it would have taken the prime-mover and the first semi to get to where they did before the collision”? Bernard asked. The sergeant thought for a moment, but wasn't able to answer before Bernard came up with his own assessment. “Could have been about five seconds”, he said. “Possibly”.

“Apparently, it's one of the biggest natural forests in the country”, Bernard was now saying. He didn't know the area well; he'd just read about it on their trip up. It wasn't a region anyone, as far as he could see, would wish to visit and he certainly would have no reason to go there himself, under normal circumstances. It was a long way from civilization. In fact, it had taken a couple of hours to fly from State Police headquarters, a journey they would have to retrace later when they headed home, leaving local officers to clear up and deal with the body.  "Pretty impressive, aye; trees as far as you can see”. The sergeant heard what was being said, he nodded occasionally, but his eyes were fixed on those hills. There would be snakes among the trees, the serpent, and frogs, probably, and, of course, birds. The butterfly too. “These rigs are in and out of here all day long, carting logs away, if he's local”. Bernard gestured towards the Nissan as he spoke. “He must have known that”. He paused for a moment. “If he was doing sixty kph, he would be about ...”. There was a further silence from Bernard; his face raised to the sky while he concentrated on the computation. “... Let's see, a kilometre a minute, so, that's … over sixteen metres per second. In five seconds, that is at least ... eighty metres. Eighty metres! He must have been asleep not to see the rig pulling out in front of him. He could have stopped, easily; he wouldn't even have had to brake hard”. The sergeant wasn't listening now. There were koalas too; before the machines came, anyway. “Or just taking time out”, Bernard said.