Dolphin Address 03
January 31th 2006
It already was quite an ordeal to walk the frozen snow on the Berlin side walks, but now, after a day of melting everything is frozen over again. Like a penguin I shuffle the slippery lumps. On a parked bus a rather paranoid dolphin with a cheap little of crown over the blowhole swims above an undulating text: Delphin-Autovermietung.
I shake my head walking by. Once again someone trying to cash in on the copy-right free popularity of the dolphin. And with the typical clumsiness of someone going for a fast buck.
But then again this is pretty harmless. Some time ago a friendly spirit sent me this funny tale. It was jovially worded by someone from the USA who called himself an assistant professor. Since I sometimes daily get spammed for buying Master-degrees and other impressive diploma’s off complete strangers who nevertheless are convinced of my intellectual capacities, my respect for university titles is withering. This was about a supposed spring-loading mechanism in the peduncle of the dolphin. Because this moves up and down in propelling the fluke, a score of researchers has decided to prove in a rush of armchair insight that the peduncle has elastic qualities. This would help to load energy with every stroke in the opposite direction. As an explanatory model the gravity defying capacity for jumping by Kangaroo’s is presented. The fact that gravity is greatly annihilated by the upward force of the water was erased instantly from the equation when I challenged it. The proof of this reasoning amounted in the observation that dolphins don’t tire easily.
This way you can even prove there are cucumbers growing on Mars.
I don’t like this kind of secreted science. If you pursue to discover the truth you should be open to it. Mistakes only count if you do not learn from them. For an answer I got back an open door in two short and irritated sentences. My argument that a dolphin is not a machine but a sentient being that has to monitor its three dimensional propulsion even more acute than we have to do our own mostly two dimensional version was not met. My question to the assistant professor if he had any idea as if the dolphin would be conscious of the mechanism described by him did not carry any further discussion.
Then better go straight away for the distinguished tandem that had dreamed up this insight. It took some perseverance, but then 4 megabyte of info was sent to me. Without any navigation. In one respect it’s great to have cutting edge info now on dolphins to read that will carry me way into the summer. On the other hand it does not really celebrate reliable quality. My complaint about this avalancheous nature of their argument and my question as to where to start out were cast aside by an empty response.
Should I then acquire such a diploma? Kinda cute, Jan B. Ploeg, Ph.D. Who knows what doors it might open.
Rather stay cool, though. I think the dolphin creates a very refined balance between pectoral fins and fluke. Or, as I once put it, ‘the fluke is like a gigantic hand, with a thousand fingers on the water.’
At that time I also experimented with blocs of lead on my hands and feet to empower the pendulous movement of my arms and legs. It’s great for walking up a bridge. But also it tires you out faster.
Ach, dolphins, a flirt with the ‘perpetuum mobile’, a few million dollars research grant, we all have to get by, don’t we?
Jan Ploeg, Berlin, January 31th 2006
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