{"id":257004,"date":"2023-10-05T19:47:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-05T23:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=256168"},"modified":"2024-01-04T14:10:14","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T14:10:14","slug":"darwin-said-he-thought-better-while-walking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2023\/10\/05\/darwin-said-he-thought-better-while-walking\/","title":{"rendered":"Darwin said he thought better while walking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"525\" height=\"349\" data-attachment-id=\"257887\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2023\/10\/05\/darwin-said-he-thought-better-while-walking\/image-39-3\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/image-39.png?fit=1024%2C681&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"1024,681\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"image-39\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/image-39.png?fit=525%2C349&amp;ssl=1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/image-39.png?resize=525%2C349&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-257887\" style=\"width:900px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/image-39.png?w=1024&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/image-39.png?resize=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/image-39.png?resize=768%2C511&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">(<a href=\"https:\/\/www.robinsloan.com\/newsletters\/what-would-a-wizard-read\/?utm_source=double-dagger-list&amp;utm_campaign=943fda3ef3-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_7_2023_6_45&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_c9a0a1b1c2-943fda3ef3-426795553\">From Robin Sloan<\/a>) There\u2019s a great bit from Robert MacFarlane\u2019s book Old Ways, in which he writes that a wise man &#8220;told me once about how [Charles] Darwin had constructed a sandy path which looped through the woods and fields around his house at Downe, in Kent. It was while walking this path daily that Darwin did much of his thinking, and he came to refer to it as the \u201cSandwalk\u201d or the thinking path. Sometimes he would pile a series of flints in a rough cairn at the start of the path, and knock one away with his walking stick after completing each circuit. He came to be able to anticipate, [the wise man] explained, a \u201cthree-flint problem\u201d or a \u201cfour-flint problem\u201d, reliably quantifying the time it would take to solve an intellectual puzzle in terms of distance walked.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"syndication-links\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(From Robin Sloan) There\u2019s a great bit from Robert MacFarlane\u2019s book Old Ways, in which he writes that a wise man &#8220;told me once about how [Charles] Darwin had constructed a sandy path which looped through the woods and fields around his house at Downe, in Kent. It was while walking this path daily that &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2023\/10\/05\/darwin-said-he-thought-better-while-walking\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Darwin said he thought better while walking&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crsspst_to_mathewingramblogwordpresscom":true,"mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-257004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257004"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":257888,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257004\/revisions\/257888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}