Zen of Surfing

"Your attention is so focused in the barrel ride you can't think about anything else."
- Kelly Slater

playing with his toys

"The ocean is where I could hide. The land is where all the problems were."

on extreme sports

"Skaters always get banged up but they don't die; surfers never get banged up but they can die."
- Attributed to Kelly Slater by Nicolas Cage

Image source here.

"Fear causes hesitation ... and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true."
- Patrick Swayze in Point Break

big wave

"Listening to music makes me slow down."
- Laird Hamilton [born 1964]

hang ten

The artist Thomas Campbell [born 1969] surfs many different media — from painting to documentary film. His studio in Santa Cruz, Calif., is strategically located for easy access to great waves. NYT.

Tony Hawk [born 1968] is a fan.

http://www.thomascampbell-art.com

The Theory Of Everything

Has A Surfer/Snowboarder Who Lives In A Van Rewritten Physics?

A few weeks ago, Lisi posted an academic paper called "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" to arxiv.org, a site for scientists that's maintained by Cornell University. The paper outlined his attempt at a theory that would lay out the physics of the universe in one tidy package. For half a century, researchers have sought to reconcile gravity with the three forces that operate inside atoms, where gravity seems to hold no sway. No one—not even Einstein, who spent the later years of his life trying—has been able to explain how these four forces can coexist.
To understand fully Lisi's own stab at the problem requires a grasp of mathematics far beyond all but a handful of people, but the basic premise is that all physical forces and particles can be explained by mapping them onto an incredibly complex geometrical structure known as E8. If Lisi is right, his theory would give an elegant shape to the physics of the cosmos, and E8 would become as significant as E=MC2. This would be a remarkable feat coming from any of the most accomplished physicists alive. Coming from a surf bum, it would be beyond extraordinary.