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.
We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now we can control our future instead of letting the future control us.
Evolution is a process of constant branching and expansion.
One theory which can no longer be taken very seriously is that UFOs are interstellar spaceships.
Mathematics is the tool specially suited for dealing with abstract concepts of any kind and there is no limit to its power in this field.
Ninety-nine percent of all species that ever lived are now extinct.
The radiations that pour upon the earth cause the biosphere to take on properties unknown to lifeless planetary surfaces, and thus transform the face of the earth. Activated by radiation, the matter of the biosphere collects and redistributes solar energy, and converts it ultimately into free energy capable of doing work on earth.
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