This is something I have been thinking about since the Olympics... at what point will it not be possible for human beings to swim or run any faster. There has to be a point where the human body just can't go any faster, no matter how much you train, what kind of things you put into your body (legal or not), etc.
I mean it isn't possible to swim a 400 IM, for example, in 2 seconds (at least I don't think it ever will be) so where does it end? And when will that happen?
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Former Member
There's really no point in developing timing systems that return more significant digits. Why? Think about the tolerance in pool design. If one swim was done in a pool a couple millimeters different in length from another, why bother going to .001 seconds in time? You see what I'm getting at? originally posted by knelson
The main problem I have with that argument is that the same argument can be used to discard differentiating times that differ by 0.01 seconds as well.....But they already do differentiate times that differ by 0.01....If you were to swim a race at a USS sanctioned meet and turn in a time that was 0.01 seconds faster than an existing record (World Records included), then you would officially be the new world record holder....Correct?....What's is the significant difference between a difference of 0.001 and a difference of 0.01 then?
newmastersswimmer
There's really no point in developing timing systems that return more significant digits. Why? Think about the tolerance in pool design. If one swim was done in a pool a couple millimeters different in length from another, why bother going to .001 seconds in time? You see what I'm getting at? originally posted by knelson
The main problem I have with that argument is that the same argument can be used to discard differentiating times that differ by 0.01 seconds as well.....But they already do differentiate times that differ by 0.01....If you were to swim a race at a USS sanctioned meet and turn in a time that was 0.01 seconds faster than an existing record (World Records included), then you would officially be the new world record holder....Correct?....What's is the significant difference between a difference of 0.001 and a difference of 0.01 then?
newmastersswimmer
