Looking For A General Theory Of Sand ... In Leelanau
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| "Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore" by Mark Forton |
Walking along Empire Beach, in the shadow of the dunes, ...
I observed a very thin stream of sand flowing down the face of the bluff.
Like a tiny flow of water from an open tap.
Curiously, the sand immediately around this stream - and as far a I could see, in all directions - was motionless.
Not a grain moved outside of the small stream.
Such a small, solitary, sand slide.
How does this happen?
"We don't know. No one understands how sand works," says Randall Munroe, a New York Time's science writer.
Indeed, even the learned ones in the field of physics who study granular materials - known as "soft matter" - are stymied.
Because grains of sand have so many different properties - size, shape, weight, roughness, etc., ...
There is no formula to reliably predict if, when and how sand will move.
It remains a major, unsolved problem in physics, ...
And on the beach in Leelanau.
I'll keep digging for a solution.
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