The Science of Sport

This past weekend was pretty busy, with the exception of watching a little tv here and there. When I wasn't watching the NBA playoffs, I watched some sport science on Fox Sports Net. I originally wasn't going to use the show for my journal, but it was so appropriate. The people in the show were observing the mystery behind hang time and jumping ability. The guy they were testing was a player who plays street ball, and he had a fifty inch vertical (I wish i had that). Anyways, they made him jump over a 5'8" person, who he cleared easily. They placed sensors on his legs, and calculated that he generated 14,000 newtons of force to jump over the person. They said that that was enough force to carry the entire Detroit Pistons starting lineup while jumping. Incredible. Next, they made him jump over a car, that was five feet wide. Although they didn't calculate the force required to do this, they explained what his muscles needed to do to allow him enough air to clear it. They said he needed to lower his center of gravity, and then fire up all of his muscles while running at a decently high velocity towards his take-off point. Once he actually took off, he transferred all of his force down his body and into the ground, allowing him to jump and dunk the basketball. Although I have always been awed by high flying dunkers in the pros, the idea of force generated by the body amazed me even more.

Strobe LIghts!

This past weekend, I went to sophmore banquet and had a great time. The food was alright and Brad Lawson's band was playing super awesome music. When the dinner was over and it was time to hit the dance floor, physics took full effect. The strobe light was one of the first things I noticed while dancing. Because the frequency of the light waves is less than if a light was simply turned on, it seemed as if everyone was moving in slow motion. Similarly to physics class, people's faces seemed entirely different everytime the light flashed. Another physics effect that took place, was the speakers blasting music. As I moved from one end of the dancefloor to the other side, the music sounded slightly different. This was most likely due to the sound waves bouncing off different types of surfaces before being heard by my ears. Also, the music was blasting with such powerful amplitude that it felt as if the ground was shaking. I could actually see part of the speaker vibrating during down beats in the rap songs that were being played. (Sorry, some of the pictures I took didnt come out good at all)