Restitution

Spring and the Corona Luna

Tuesday gratefuls: Midsommar, the movie. Korean pancakes. Working out. The endorphins. Nap. Kate’s string of better days, except for that damned leaking feeding tube. Reconstructionist webinar on zoom. Your strong coefficient of restitution. (see below) The Talmud. Beggars in Spain, a sci fi novel I’m reading which Kate also read .

A conversation among old Woollies, gray haired Mammoths, about resilience went from Paul’s etymological observation about resilio, leap or spring back in Latin, to Tom’s engineering vocabulary: the coefficient of restitution. After looking it up (Tom sent a definition, but I can’t copy it.), I found this, which explains Tom’s familiarity with it: “The coefficient of restitution is largely absent from undergraduate Physics textbooks but is HUGELY useful for problems involving collisions.”

Here’s a bit more: “The closer the coefficient is to one, the bouncier the object is. An object with a coefficient close to zero would have very little bounce.” What’s your restitution coefficient after colliding with the social distance pressure waves of Covid-19? Are you closer to one? Still bouncy and vibrant. Or, closer to zero? Laid out flat by the whole experience. Maybe you even have covid-19.

My coefficient varies during the day and day by day. Most of the time I’d say its .85 or so. Occasionally though. Thinking of Gertie. Realizing the hassle of getting groceries. Getting the call that the practice is closed: my ophthalmologist, for instance. Feeling the world’s sigh. Maybe down to .5. But not for long.