When do the world records stop

And while "fastest humanly possible time" is a wonderful cocktail party or discussion forum topic, it presupposes the event of a genetically perfectly individual, perfectly trained from birth (or earlier), at the peak of their career, with perfect technique maintained for every nanosecond of the race, with a perfect taper, a perfectly timed start, in an absolutely perfect pool with a perfectly fast suit, expending every ounce of energy, etc. It also presupposes that no one will be able to learn from this person and figure out a better way. Based on these presuppositions, I would agree there is a fastest humanly possible time, but without more sophisticated modeling there is no way to exactly peg this time. I remember back in the day, when the experts stated absolutely that 15:00 was the absolute fastest time for the 1500M. Well, they missed that one. originally posted by Rob Copeland Hey I TOTALLY agree with you on this one o.k.....that's why I was very careful in my prior postings to say ""IF" you believe in the speculation that was given by others on this thread" (followed by my personal disbelief in it) ...whenever I addressed this issue....So for example, (in response to something else you said in an earlier posting)...when you said that I am more likely to be struck by lightening than see a dead heat in the 50 meter freestyle (to within 0.01 seconds).....I want you to know that I am not claiming the contrary.....What I said there was "IF" you believe that over the years (and that may mean " A LOT" of years here) that the fastest times posted by the "elite" swimmers in a particular event are approaching some "mythical" limit "asymptotically" (and the word "asymptotically" is very important here).....then in some far distant future (where elite swimmers are very unlikely to make any "significant" mistakes in a 50 meter freestyle that would account for a time loss of more than 0.001 seconds) that the probability of a dead heat occuring in the 50 meter freestyle at the Olympics (where the timing system works on a 0.01 second scale) may be around 0.999!!..........But then again I don't believe in the whole asymptotic approach over time to a limit of some kind.......In math you base your conclusions on your assumptions....if the assumptions are absurd, then the conclusions can be even more absurd!! newmastersswimmer

Originally posted by Rob Copeland So with that, I’ll state unequivocally, that the fastest humanly possible time in the 50 Yard Free is 17.760704 seconds! Nonsense. Everyone knows it's 17.760703998. Honestly, some people's kids... -LBJ

Originally posted by mattson From a discussion with Jim, timing gets even more complicated once you approach hypothetical limits. Special relativity tells us that simultaneity depends on your reference frame. It would be possible for observer A to see 1 happen before 2, and observer B to see 2 happen before 1. That would really mess up the swim standings! (The fact that observers A and B are traveling at near light speeds in opposite directions, is a minor technicality. ;) ) However, keep in mind that in the quantum physics world, space and time both seem to have a granularity. The implication is that at a certain level, both space and time are meaningless. Hence, measuring same is meaningless/impossible. Thank God for physics and math. If we didn't have them, things might make sense. -LBJ

As to whether you can construct an environment that is sufficiently controlled as to make a difference of one or two millimeters non-random, consider water currents, if the average speed of the water in two lanes differs by more than 1mm per 20s (0.05mm/s) then one swimmer will have a 1mm advantage over the other. I doubt that it is practical to control the water currents in a 50m pool so as to eliminate such an advantage. originally posted by Lindsay Oh believe me I am considering it.....(to within some reasonable degree of course).......You see I am looking at two completely separate issues to guide my madness here....the first is "sufficient integrity"....this has to do with trying to control factors like the one you mentioned above (together with pool length variations from lane to lane, starting blocks, starting system with speakers directly behind each block, and other factors too that I think are "relevant" to the appropriate scales involved for this kind of timing system). Other factors (such as possible chlorine density variations from lane to lane...or minute temperature fluctuations from lane to lane ...etc...) I will either declare as "negligible" factors...or I will claim that any combination of these remaining factors that could somehow effect a swimmers race in a "relevant" way for this type of timing system all get "canceled out in the wash" since I claim that any positive or negative cumulative effect by some combination of those factors has an equal likli-hood of effecting any given swimmer one way or the other.....then this will be my "totally insane" criteria for "sufficient integrity" Then the second issue has to do with "reliability"...So putting all integrity issues aside, how reliable will my envisioned timing system be at distinguishing swimmers times (and hences places) within a single heat if the time differences are no smaller than 0.001 seconds.....I have modified my other posting on my underwater video timing system to attack this issue. I have supplied a link below for the kind of cameras I might use for this......As you yourself pointed out, it's about a combination of BOTH Sufficiently High Resolution AND Sufficiently High Speed here.....my prior link was for a camera that was only guaranteed to meet the latter requirement (it 's all about mega pixels per second then!!).....The cameras in the link I provided claim to take 10,000 frames per second (so 10 still shots in 0.001 seconds) and with a resolution of 1280 x 1024 pixels per frame.....So that way the individual still shots can be blown up enough to clearly see a gap of 1 mm.....To fix the problem of tiney air bubbles possibly obstructing the view, (and detecting fingernails) ...I have several ideas.....one is to use 3 cameras per lane (one to the left below, one in the center below, and one to the right below).....also each swimmer would dip the tips of thier fingures in a temporary dye to make fingernails more visible before each race (with enough time for the waterproof dye to dry sufficiently)....then they would place thier hands in a picture box at the blocks momentarily before the race so that multiple high resolution pictures of thier hands can be recorded from multiple angles...I think you can see where I'm going with this I hope....A "safe" non-toxic solvent will be provided to remove the dye shortly after each race.....As far as the integrity issue goes, I have fairly detailed methods in mind to address each of those issues...Lets just say (for now) that my pool length issue wioll involve a highly elaborate way of modifying an already existing pool (by a method that is at least partially motivated by the current method of re-sleeving a cylinder inside a piston driven automobile engine.....but on a much grander scale)....Here lasers and sonar equipment, and much more will be involved...I will release the full scale plan sometime soon (I have to finish reporting my final grades for the semester for now)....Yes I am a nutjob to the extreme by the way.....I already know this so there is no need to further explain. Oh yeah (one other thing)....An Already existing Sensory Touchpad system will provide "temporary" unofficial times while the more sophisticated video system can be properly analyzed after each race...then later the "official" times and places will be made known. www.fastcamreplay.com/.../MotionPro.htm newmastersswimmer

Another solution to the conundrum, instead of increasing timing accuracy to .001, would be to ban shorter events that would possibly have extreme ties to the 0.01. If we got rid of 50’s and 100’s and added 400’s of each stroke and the 5000 free, the possibility of a dead heat would be greatly diminished. And as the 200’s approached dead heatedness we could drop the 200’s and add 800’s. I’d love to see Ian Crocker’s great-grandson race Michael Phelps’ great-grandson in the 800 butterfly in the 2096 Olympics. originally posted by Rob Copeland Sounds like a great idea......maybe even a 5000 meter butterfly......But eventually (thousands and thousands of years from now) we will have 8 clones from the Brave new world all swimming in such sychronization that (unfortuantely) we will still get our dead heat ...(only joking of course!!)......They will all be clones of Phelps' Great Great Great........Great Grandson Micheal Phelps the XXXXXXXXX......XXX....II perhaps!! LOL There the limitting time is clearly around 46: 28.10789567306 (roughly speaking of course!!) newmastersswimmer

Why is it, when I envision this futuristic dead heat, I see 8 clones out of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, swimming as one in complete synchronicity? Another solution to the conundrum, instead of increasing timing accuracy to .001, would be to ban shorter events that would possibly have extreme ties to the 0.01. If we got rid of 50’s and 100’s and added 400’s of each stroke and the 5000 free, the possibility of a dead heat would be greatly diminished. And as the 200’s approached dead heatedness we could drop the 200’s and add 800’s. I’d love to see Ian Crocker’s great-grandson race Michael Phelps’ great-grandson in the 800 butterfly in the 2096 Olympics. Community, Identity, Stability! And to Jim’s skepticism about “when "almost" the exact same amount of pressure is applied to it from one touch pad to the next”, contact the vendors I’m sure they will gladly provide their specifications. My problem has always been that the amount of pressure needed to trip the pad requires a commitment to smash your finger tips into the pad or accept the additional time it takes for the palm to exert enough pressure. I used to swim with a couple of sprinters who would sometimes break or severely jam fingers with time saving finger tip plunges into a wall. I, as a distance guy, was content with the extra time penalty associated with saving my fingers. You may also want to look into Omega Timing’s use of video and electronic timing in the 1967 Pan-American Games in Winnipeg. They may have some information that is useful in your quest to design a more accurate timing system. And Leonard, what’s his name was Anthony Ervin.

So every swimming world record is slower by the amount of time needed to activate the pad, but every time is slower by that same timing delay Originally posted by Rob Copeland After re-reading this comment of yours I think I realize now that I misinterpreted what you meant there (I think anyway?)....If your saying that the time necessary for the electronics to register a time after the sufficient amount of pressure needed to activate the touch pad has been accomplished is the same for everyone??...well yes, isn't that completely obvious??....Both Mattson and I already made that point in earlier postings in fact......I was interpreting that statement as saying that the microscopic time delay associated to some pre-set minimal pressure level for a touch pad will be "almost" exactly the same from one touch pad to the next....thus a statement that each touchpad registers (i.e. activates tha electronics within the system) when "almost" the exact same amount of pressure is applied to it from one touch pad to the next ...that's what I am skeptical about....... newmastersswimmer

None-the-less, "IF" we want to use timing systems that discern times that differ by as little as 0.001, then... I think this is the first non-universally shared assumption. As to whether you can construct an environment that is sufficiently controlled as to make a difference of one or two millimeters non-random, consider water currents, if the average speed of the water in two lanes differs by more than 1mm per 20s (0.05mm/s) then one swimmer will have a 1mm advantage over the other. I doubt that it is practical to control the water currents in a 50m pool so as to eliminate such an advantage.

Originally posted by newmastersswimmer thus a statement that each touchpad registers (i.e. activates tha electronics within the system) when "almost" the exact same amount of pressure is applied to it from one touch pad to the next ...that's what I am skeptical about....... This is really nothing more than how precise (NOT accurate) two systems can be made. If we assume that current systems are precise WRT each other at the current level of 0.01 seconds, then real real question is what is the feasibility of creating devices that are a full order of magnitude of precision greater than a current level. There are three possibilities: 1) Given the current technology, the inherent precision is greater than that being used and adequate for an order of magnitude improvement but is not being used because the rules do not require it. The cost to build the new device with 10x precision, therefore, is fairly low (probably a new timing chip and display changes). 2) Given the current technology, the inherent precision is greater than that being used and inadequate for an order of magnitude improvement. Cost for this change is high, since it will have to be re-engineered. The hope is that incremental changes will get it to the desired level to keep the cost down. If incremental changes won't work, then you basically end up with case 3. 3) Given the current technology, the inherent precision is maxed out at its current usage level and (obviously) inadequate for an order of magnitude improvement. Cost for this change is extremely high, since it will have to be re-engineered from the ground up. If we can make the devices precise, it is trivial to make them accurate at the 0.001 level since 0.001 timing accuracy is worse than a $5.00 K-Mart watch. I don't think anyone has mentioned this, but in the 2000 Olympics, if there had been 0.001 sec precise timing, who would have won the 50m free? Hall or (forgot his name)? -LBJ

Thought I'd resurrect this old post the world will never know Who would have thought someone would beat the mens 50 y free record by 0.3? probably every current record can improve by at least .3 per 50 some records are currently beatable, it's just that the swimmer hasn't swum in a meet, tapered shaved ... like Ian Crockers 44.5 100 y fly. his 50.7 LCM 100 fly is a much faster time under the right conditions Ian could probably go 43.99 or better in the 100 y fly some records are harder to beat than others and may stay on the books for a long time. It took a long time for someone to beat Mary T's 200 fly. Natalie Coughlins 100 y back and 100 fly times will be very hard to beat If you include age group records, in 1976 as a 14 year old jesse vassallo went 15:31 in the 1500 meter free and that record still stands nearly 30 years later. Then if you look at masters swimming, as some of the younger faster whipper snappers age up, records will fall. Maybe the US should begin a champion swimmer breeding program. Ande Originally posted by SwiminONandON 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?