This is perhaps not the most beautiful photo, but it fills me with wonder. I took this photo sitting in my seat on the train. The white structure you see outside the window is the hold of the very large ferry the train is boarding. The train was going from Denmark to Germany, and there happens to be a body of water in the middle of the route. So the train goes on the ferry, and the ferry crosses the water in about 45 minutes, and then the train continues on its way.
Yes, I know that ferries carry cars and trucks and buses and all sorts of other large items, but the moment I realized the train was going on the ferry (which I didn’t know in advance), it was as if all of that conceptual knowledge melted away and just left me with wonder.
There’s the wonder of the buoyancy of water, able to lift up really heavy things and enable them to float.
There’s the wonder of the feats of human engineering that create vessels that work with the power of water’s buoyancy.
There’s the slight magic that, even if you understand the physics and the engineering of it all, it’s still a bit amazing that we’re really not going to sink.
And then there’s the idea that, even a large vehicle designed to transport people and goods over long distances sometimes needs an assist in that role.
And thus we have the troat. (Train in a boat. I’m rather happy with that word, thank you very much.)
Wonder doesn’t have to come in a large form. Where have you seen it today?
