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Ride | Sep 23 2005

Imagine an enormous bowl, too wide to see across, that’s spinning, much like the earth, in two ways at once: around its own axis, and in orbit of a point outside itself. You are inside the bowl as it spins, held by centrifugal force against its inner wall, which is made of a material too slippery to grasp. Others are with you, strangers. As the spinning slows, you fall closer and closer to the center of the bowl. There is a hole there, at the bottom, through which everyone will fall. That hole is the point of the ride.