he asks muybridge to photograph his house. muybridge is a well known man. stanford is the most well known man. muybridge photographs the man's house. somehow they become friends. it's not clear to me how. and they begin to spend time together. stanford in his rise to conspicuous consumption develops an interest in horses. he buys dozens, and then more than a hundred. standard breeds and thoroughbreds. he buys attractive land, 10,000 acres, 30 miles south of san francisco, and he names it palo alto and installs his horses at palo alto where he builds another mansion. palo alto becomes, flash forward 100 years, the site of of stanford university. the horse farm was there, and then stanford university was built on top of stanford's horse farm. stanford spends a lot of his time now with his horses watching them gallop, and he's fascinates by one enigma which was this: do the hooves of horses ever leave the ground during a gallop? do all four feet ever leave the ground? do horses ever become our born when they're -- airborne when they're running? this was a ques