ABSTRACT
In the midst of a relatively dry, flat plain in the interior of Australia—suddenly and unexpectedly, there it is—Uluru, or Ayer’s Rock as the Europeans call it. I saw it first from a bus, crammed with tourists taking pictures through the windows—lacking whatever it took to want to exit and touch the red earth! I couldn’t stand it, so I grabbed my pack and contrary to National Park regulations I started a walk that would not get me back until well after “closing time.” I communed with the huge, sometimes-orange red rock in glorious solitude for hours, walking completely around it with my only guide being memories of some scattered comments made to me by local Aborigines. The whole story, I will have to tell somewhere else. For now, let me say that this brief look into a small part of Aboriginal culture is a shortened summary of this entire book, both the mathematical and environmental parts. 1
