I learned this tidbit recently after happening upon the obituary of a man named Don Duso. In the 1940s Duso helped rescue Einstein after he capsized his sailboat on Saranac Lake in upstate New York. I hadn't even known Einstein sailed. But it only stands to reason that the man who discovered relativity by reveling in "thought experiments" would enjoy sailing--and that he might push a small sailboat to its limit while contemplating the complex interactions of energy and mass relative to the speed of wind. E=mw2?
It's cool to think about this as your boat heels to the wind and the bow wave sings along your hull and you slip along the space-time continuum. Sailing is as close to the alternative universes of contemporary physics as many of us will ever experience. And imagine having a beer with Ol' Al back in the clubhouse after a fine day on the water and shooting the breeze about what it all means. Heavens!
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