Squirrel cage induction
I saw a book on Squirrels come into the library last week Squirrels : the animal answer guide [the main purpose of this post is to show off this new WorldCat book & library service]. Squirrels; they're like monkeys, but smaller. I see this book is trying to convince me that chipmunks are a type of squirrel. I would regard that as a highly contentious statement, but apparently chipmunk is simply the algonquin word for squirrel. More important does it cover why squirrels insist on running back in forth in front of you on the road. That they do this even to folk like myself who come up upon them pedaling slowly on a bicycle and dither until you bellow "getouttheway" at them. Which breaks them out of their reverie. Yes, it does cover this and it offers a reason. First it points out that it seems to be juvenile squirrels that behave like this. older squirrels are more resolute. Then it adds that this is an evolved squirrel behavior, jinking back and forth, that has served it well against animal predators, but which is of less utility against automotive preditation. This seems in order. It explains and predicts, but I have two alternate theories. Both are variations of the "squirrels have tiny tiny brains" theme. Squirrels I think have very short memories for some things. Once they reverse course and the danger formerly looming before them is no longer visible they forget about it. And the need for whatever it was that lay on the other side of the road re-asserts itself. They turn around and head back. One obvious objection to this: squirrels have their eyes set in such a way that makes me think they have fairly good peripherial vision and probably would never lose sight of the car. I have a second idea. Squirrel brains have evolved to process moving objects at approximately the acceleration of gravity, the speed of a falling acorn. The speed of their own bodies falling from branch to branch. They can plot intercepts and convergences of objects at this approximate speed but not at others. A car approaching at 30 miles an hour simply makes no sense to them. I don't believe they can make any meaning of it, obtain any actionable information. To them it is as though one of us, with our big fat multi-velocity dipthong folding brains came across a extra-dimensional object. We wouldn't know what it was or what to do about it and only its relative unfamiliarity would signal potential danger to us as we walk around it and poke it with our sticks.
11:49:47 PM  ;;
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