I have a theoretical question. What do you think is the absolute fastest time possible for a human being in the 100 yard freestyle. One way I was looking at it was to start at 1.00 second and say, will anyone ever be able to swim it in 1.00 sec. No. Will anyone ever be able to swim it in 2.00 seconds. No...so on and so on. At what time do you stop and say, hmmm, maybe someday someone would be able to swim that fast.
It's a very interesting question. Perhaps if someone with algebraic skills and the history of the 100 m world record (this might be a better distance to look at because more people have swum it), you could plot the performances over time. I would assume the rate of improvement has been slowing, and you might be able to come up with some sort of asymtote type line we'll likely never, as a species, bust through.
One other thing to factor in: though the top swimmers in history have been fantastic athletes, it's quite possible that the absolute best potential swimmers never took up the sport--concentrating instead on other sports. Not that Michael Jordan would necessarily have had a great 100 but--doesn't it seem that somewhere out there exists close to the ideal sprint swimmer--huge hands and feet, incredibly tall, loose, explosively strong, tons of fast twitch muscles, etc. -- but who is playing some other sport and maybe doesn't even know how to swim?
Just a thought.
It's a very interesting question. Perhaps if someone with algebraic skills and the history of the 100 m world record (this might be a better distance to look at because more people have swum it), you could plot the performances over time. I would assume the rate of improvement has been slowing, and you might be able to come up with some sort of asymtote type line we'll likely never, as a species, bust through.
One other thing to factor in: though the top swimmers in history have been fantastic athletes, it's quite possible that the absolute best potential swimmers never took up the sport--concentrating instead on other sports. Not that Michael Jordan would necessarily have had a great 100 but--doesn't it seem that somewhere out there exists close to the ideal sprint swimmer--huge hands and feet, incredibly tall, loose, explosively strong, tons of fast twitch muscles, etc. -- but who is playing some other sport and maybe doesn't even know how to swim?
Just a thought.
