General Path Development at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

The arrangement of paving units in a path can subtly affect the speed at which you walk. A uniform grain along the path—for example, that created by bricks laid lengthwise in stretcher bond—can seem to hurry you on, whereas a less directional pattern will encourage a slower pace. The treatment may be chosen to suit the purpose of the path—a "slow" path where there is plenty to admire, a "faster" path where the aim is simply to provide access to another part of the garden.

ALTHOUGH THE shortest distance between one point in your plan and another may be a straight line, that does not necessarily mean that the path you lay between these two points should be straight. A straight path may fit in with a garden that has a rigid geometric design, but in many cases it will serve only to split the garden needlessly. Straight or angular padis will tend to segment the area and give a formal appearance, whereas by incorporating curves you can produce a more natural effect. You should take into account the profile of the ground itself, both for the appearance of the path and for practical considerations: for example, a path sloping toward the hou: or other outbuilding will create a direct route for heavy rainwater to flow to the house walls rather than soaking into the ground as it would normally. Where paths need to change direction, in general path development it is better to make that change it the form of a curve rather than of a sharp angle, unless the latter fits in with the overa design of the garden. However, don't go ma with too many curves and squiggles, as building such a path can be a nightmare.

By 1916, Einstein had developed a complete mathematical theory of gravitation, the general path development theory of relativity, in which the effect of a mass is to deform the geometrical properties of the space surrounding it. Using the ideas of the non-Euclidian geometers, he suggested that the path of a light ray is a geodesic—that is, light always travels the shortest time path between two points. However, while that shortest path is usually a straight line in Euclidean flat space, it is curved in non-Euclidean curved space.