1. The orientation of the shortest road between Chicago and New Orleans. As you progress along the road, you’ll notice that it is mostly going south. Sometimes it jitters east or west but generally returns (and fairly quickly) to a southerly orientation. If you blasted a hole in some segment of road, making the shortest road something else, it would return to south-facing pretty quickly. (note: I was trying to think of one that doesn’t involve time, at least not fundamentally.)
2. The position of my glass of water on the table. If I push down on it, it becomes ever so slightly lower even though it doesn’t feel like it (the table is firm, but on atomic scales the atoms of my glass are getting slightly closer to it!). When I let go, it imperceptably springs back.
3. The number of unread emails in my inbox. It tends to 0 pretty quickly, until there is such a huge surge that I let a few go unread, and then there are X unread emails and that’s the new equilibrium for a few months. (I suppose if you went and deleted one of them, then there would be X-1. But on at least one occasion I did this and then as a result slacked off a bit in my email-reading so that I ended up with X again.)
1. The orientation of the shortest road between Chicago and New Orleans. As you progress along the road, you’ll notice that it is mostly going south. Sometimes it jitters east or west but generally returns (and fairly quickly) to a southerly orientation. If you blasted a hole in some segment of road, making the shortest road something else, it would return to south-facing pretty quickly. (note: I was trying to think of one that doesn’t involve time, at least not fundamentally.)
2. The position of my glass of water on the table. If I push down on it, it becomes ever so slightly lower even though it doesn’t feel like it (the table is firm, but on atomic scales the atoms of my glass are getting slightly closer to it!). When I let go, it imperceptably springs back.
3. The number of unread emails in my inbox. It tends to 0 pretty quickly, until there is such a huge surge that I let a few go unread, and then there are X unread emails and that’s the new equilibrium for a few months. (I suppose if you went and deleted one of them, then there would be X-1. But on at least one occasion I did this and then as a result slacked off a bit in my email-reading so that I ended up with X again.)
I love the first one. Explicitly trying to avoid time is a brilliant spin on the exercise.