How to be an Excellent Physicist

If you run from Cambridge to downtown Boston at an average of 8:45/ mile pace but start your first mile off at 7:30 and end your last mile at 9:00 minute pace what is your rate of deceleration?

I don't know but I know that it feels like shit.


Runners, athletes, and yes, you, can be a great physicist. The understanding of our body's limits under the constrains of time, distance, and space is something that great athletes have mastered.  It's called an internal clock - a precise understanding, based upon a bodily awareness of pace -- what your body and muscles feel, how you're mentally feeling, and what you can expect and visualize happening at any given moment in the future. Checking in, with you.

We can learn what it feels like to cue our bodies to accelerate and decelerate at certain points in time -- in response to a plan devised by our internal clock. Humans can be machines too, just by finding that proper communication between mind and body.

The first way to go about perfecting your internal clock at first is by slowing down. We all don't do this, even on a day- to- day basis. We forget to breath, we forget to keep it all in perspective, we forget to appreciate the details. We forget to smile. Taking a step back, savoring life, is a method of living that people like the Dalai Lama are excellent at. Then, when the moment calls for you to accelerate, you know how to turn it on.

Truly, I mean this in the sense that properly pacing yourself and feeling that pace  will allow you to know what  an internal clock is. So start at a restful state, fully understand that feeling, then midfully working up to a 7:00 pace, or whatever your rock-n-roll pace is that brings that heart rate up, and fully be present in that feeling - it may be pain - but at least you know. This is called body awareness. 

Let's apply this to other parts of your life as a metaphor --  when you're spin instructor  says, this should feel like a "10", and you say "what the f**?" - after practicing body awareness you'll know what a 10 feels like. The next time you freak out when your boss says, "I need this by the end of the day",  start at a relaxed 'pace' (deep breaths and some good music, chipping away steadily), then maybe you have to work a little quicker because it's 3pm and your project isn't done, and then it's the last ten minutes of the day and you realize you have to hammer down to get it done. Well, if you started at a ten, it probably would have been a very stressful experience, working away so quickly that you forget about the quality of your job, and it comes out messy.

Starting at a pace that you know you cannot uphold, only leads to deceleration, which will only lead to a lesser result. It's quality over... ..mis-quantification... 

The lessons of running do apply to the greater universe. Know thyself, know your clock, know what easy and hard means. Slow down, when you get the gut feeling, because it's always nice to thank yourself..