Athletic Physics

I’m in, tonight, watching the Olympic games and thinking about physics.

It seems to me that, while the summer games are about biology, the winter games are about physics. Or, actually, more accurately, the summer games are about fighting physics with biology. The winter games are about bending your biology to the service of physics.

I’m thinking here about luge, bobsled, downhill skiing, ski jumping, even snowboarding events versus swimming, high jump, long-jump, running events, javelin, and shot put. The former are about harnessing momentum, gravity and inertia, the latter are about defying them.

These are generalizations, of course. the physics isn’t particularly on your side in, say, the biathlon or speed skating, whereas in diving the physics is more friendly to your sport.

Both sets of athletes work extremely hard to achieve their goals, obviously, but the different physics problems are part of what makes different kinds of training and different body types desirable in different sports.

No point, really, here. It’s just interesting and cool to remember, sometimes, that physics doesn’t just affect our world, it is an intrinsic part of our world and that affects everything else.