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.
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Former Member
Elaine -
No, the shifts of yesterday can not predict the shifts of the future. For example, in the pole vault, poles were originally bamboo and then they went to steel. Despite the fact that people assumed that there would eventually be a change in materials to something better, no one then could have forseen the degree to which fiberglass and composites could have changed things. As another example, look at the backstroke and what Berkoff (sp?) did with his underwater start. That was almost completely unexpected from what had gone in the past. There are other analogies: Fosbury flop in the high jump, Mexican technique in the racewalks circa 1974-1976, etc. Sadly, the development of better performance enhancing drugs will play a role as will the eventual use of *shudder* gene therapy. All these can completely throw away any possibility of prediction of a limit based on past and present performances.
The Asimov Foundation analogy is a very good analogy, BTW, if you are familiar with it. (Highly recommended, but you can NOT skip ahead and read the end or you will have to do breath-holding sets till you puke.)
So, if Ian Thorpe and Janet Evans get married and have kids with size 28 feet, take hideous drugs, come up with a new tfreestyle echnique and eat their Wheaties, we can expect the middle and distance world records as we understand them, to go bye-bye in a dramatic, not incremental, way.
-LBJ
Elaine -
No, the shifts of yesterday can not predict the shifts of the future. For example, in the pole vault, poles were originally bamboo and then they went to steel. Despite the fact that people assumed that there would eventually be a change in materials to something better, no one then could have forseen the degree to which fiberglass and composites could have changed things. As another example, look at the backstroke and what Berkoff (sp?) did with his underwater start. That was almost completely unexpected from what had gone in the past. There are other analogies: Fosbury flop in the high jump, Mexican technique in the racewalks circa 1974-1976, etc. Sadly, the development of better performance enhancing drugs will play a role as will the eventual use of *shudder* gene therapy. All these can completely throw away any possibility of prediction of a limit based on past and present performances.
The Asimov Foundation analogy is a very good analogy, BTW, if you are familiar with it. (Highly recommended, but you can NOT skip ahead and read the end or you will have to do breath-holding sets till you puke.)
So, if Ian Thorpe and Janet Evans get married and have kids with size 28 feet, take hideous drugs, come up with a new tfreestyle echnique and eat their Wheaties, we can expect the middle and distance world records as we understand them, to go bye-bye in a dramatic, not incremental, way.
-LBJ
