Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
Interpretation
This quote humorously suggests that geography is essentially a branch of physics that examines how physical laws interact with natural elements like trees.
Terry Pratchett's quote emphasizes the connection between geography and physics, highlighting how geographic features can be understood through the principles of physical science. By stating that geography is 'physics slowed down,' he suggests that the processes shaping our planet involve the same laws that govern motion and energy, but manifest in a way that includes the complexities of nature, represented by the 'couple of trees.' This playful analogy invites us to look deeper into the natural world, recognizing the interplay between scientific laws and everyday life.
In practice
In a lecture on the importance of understanding geography through scientific principles.
And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.
I'm not cruel, sir, I won't shoot you in the guts, but I will make you realize how much you took your toes for granted.
In less than eight years "The Origin of Species" has produced conviction in the minds of a majority of the most eminent living men of science. New facts, new problems, new difficulties as they arise are accepted, solved, or removed by this theory; and its principles are illustrated by the progress and conclusions of every well established branch of human knowledge.
Science is among the most profoundly human of our activities. Far from being subsumed by the dehumanising effects of technology, science, in fact, remains our last stand against it.
It is true that some off-label drug use is based on very unsettled science and has more risks. But medicine - and not just cancer care - involves lots of hard choices. And the more serious the disorder, often the more likely it is that for every right and wrong treatment choice there are many other practical decisions painted in shades of gray.
It's the poorer people in tropical zones who will get really hit by climate change - as well as some ecosystems, which nobody wants to see disappear.
There is no energy crisis, only a crisis of ignorance.
Our circadian biology, and the insatiable early-morning demands of a post-industrial way of life, denies us the sleep we vitally need.
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