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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Originally posted by Leonard Jansen
The problem is that while this is a valid mathematical exercise, it is a bit problematic as a useful exercise.
-LBJ
Well, biggest part of the battle would be identifying and quantifying all the elements that affect out movement, then our movement through the water. Also, one would have to understand and mathematically quantify the limits of what the human body is capable.
Some of the problems in the setup of the whole thing is that scientifically we are still dealing with couple of unknowns... First would be the potential limits of what the human body is capable of (Do I sniff out a huge debate potential here). And, do we take an average human body, or do we attempt to model an ideal athlete, and what is an ideal athlete? (yeap, that could create a mega-debate just there)
The other problem is that certain elements of water's physical properties (like some details of turbulent flow and water viscosity)are still fuzzy to scientists. Some good research potential there.
It would be a very interesting exercise to conduct some tests and then try to scientifically model the extremes.
I'm guesstimating doing this would only be about 20 times as complex as designing a space shuttle ;)
Isn't there a university somewhere that is doing this kind of research already?
Oh Great, now you got me thinking about grad school again...
Originally posted by Leonard Jansen
The problem is that while this is a valid mathematical exercise, it is a bit problematic as a useful exercise.
-LBJ
Well, biggest part of the battle would be identifying and quantifying all the elements that affect out movement, then our movement through the water. Also, one would have to understand and mathematically quantify the limits of what the human body is capable.
Some of the problems in the setup of the whole thing is that scientifically we are still dealing with couple of unknowns... First would be the potential limits of what the human body is capable of (Do I sniff out a huge debate potential here). And, do we take an average human body, or do we attempt to model an ideal athlete, and what is an ideal athlete? (yeap, that could create a mega-debate just there)
The other problem is that certain elements of water's physical properties (like some details of turbulent flow and water viscosity)are still fuzzy to scientists. Some good research potential there.
It would be a very interesting exercise to conduct some tests and then try to scientifically model the extremes.
I'm guesstimating doing this would only be about 20 times as complex as designing a space shuttle ;)
Isn't there a university somewhere that is doing this kind of research already?
Oh Great, now you got me thinking about grad school again...
