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On October 11, 2019, the Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge ran the first sub-two hour marathon. The marathon requires long-term, extreme, energy expenditure. To meet that demand, Kipchoge had some unusual help: precisely calibrated support by a crew of pacers, a bicycle team supplying water and nutrition, and a pair of controversial running shoes that are said to shave a minute off the marathon time. Still, his outstanding run ranks with Usain Bolt’s record 9.58 second 100-meter race, still unbettered after 12 years, and the first 4-minute mile by Roger Bannister in 1954.… Read the rest “Running out of sugar and hitting the wall”

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Baseball is the subject of many artistic creations and scientific studies. Movies such as “Field of Dreams”, “Bull Durham”, and “Moneyball” depict baseball embedded in the larger American culture. Books such as the elegant “Game Time: A Baseball Companion”, by Roger Angell, are a literary pleasure even for someone only peripherally familiar with the game. And baseball has also engendered a broad culture of analysis through applied physics. The pitch is an object of particular fascination for the physics-inclined baseball fan.Read the rest “fastball: movement and speed – updated”

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Jesse Owens starting the 200 meter race at the 1936 Olympics. Reproduction of photograph in “Die Olympischen Spiele, 1936” p.27, 1936. 

Coverage of the recent victory of the New Zealand team in the America’s Cup yacht race featured sailboats flying along on their underwater foils at ridiculous speed, speeds reaching more than 50 miles (80 km) per hour. Whether it’s running, or driving a car, or sailing these mutant boats, speed is exciting.Read the rest “Speed Limits”