omenti

are athletes getting better?

Olympic minipost

One of Simone Biles' floor routines as seen through a high speed camera. (go full screen)  Many sports have undergone dramatic changes in the past fifty years.  The introduction of springy floors and beams has allowed more dramatic routines that revolutionized gymnastics.  It's a sport where powerful muscles and a short stature are required. Simone's incredible acceleration combined with the strength to jump explosively and change her moment of inertia in mid-air give her claim to the great athlete of our time title.  At times she's experiencing g-forces usually found in aerobatic aircraft.  Here's a short video from Quartz (it won't embed) before the Rio Olympics  explaining a bit of what's going on as well as giving a sense of how far the sport has come. 

 

Three major innovations have changed elite sports - equipment, extreme specialization of body type to match the demands of specific sports, and a much larger gene pool to selection from.  David Epstein gave a nice talk about seven years ago touching on all three:

 

Many sports - particularly Olympic sports - lack the financial rewards seen in the top professional sports, but at the elite level it's clear the expanded gene pool has become important.  Of course none of this applies at the amateur level -  people find a sport or two they like and "just do it."  There's a lot of evidence continuing these activities has a huge positive impact on health - particularly as one ages.  It may be elite athletes encourage many of us to move.  Perhaps the endeavor is cost effective at the societal level - it's both desirable and part of the public health policy in Norway.

 

mother's day

She enjoyed having to wait.  People around her would become characters in stories she'd make up.  Story making was a hobby of hers.  Often she'd invite you to join in.  As you gained experience, she'd take greater leaps.  Simple things on the street would develop complex plot twists and even find themselves in other eras or places.  

 

She was a bit on the quirky creative side and some of that may have rubbed off on me and my sister.  Here are a few lessons I learned:

° It's good to have some boredom in your life. It encourages you to try something new.

° It's fine to not be great at something if you enjoy it.

° You need several very different interests because they'll have conversations with each other if you just listen.

° Don't worry about names and dates in school. "How" and "why" are better.

° chocolate is good, pie is good, ice cream is good.

° Your friends may turn out to be at least as important as your family.  Find the good ones.

 

We were never pushed to do homework school. My parents were busy enough that our upbringing was more semi-supervised free range.  There were a lot of books and trips to the library.  The reward for a good report card we'd get an ice cream cone from Dairy Queen.  Perfect marks scored a banana split or a milk shake.  And even if she didn't understand our interests, Mom would support us how best she could. 

 

When I was about fifteen I read Edwin A. Abbott's Flatland - probably the book that had the biggest impact on me until I went to college.  As I  described the world Abbott created, Mom ran with it and developed a richer story and asked some "how" questions.  Those questions started me down a path  that taught me a little engineering - subjects she was unfamiliar with.  I began to see the value of story telling - particularly those visual stories.

 

Besides stories she enjoyed drawing and painting.  She wasn't very artistic, but spent a lot of her free time at it.  I wondered why as my sister's art was much better.   Then I went off to collage and found myself drawn to sketching.  I'm terrible, but it's a form of play that can take me to a state of flow.  I realized she was probably doing the same thing.  My sister became an accomplished artist - some her pieces have been described as snapshots of quirky short stories.   She obviously picked up a lot from Mom too.

 

We celebrate those important ones through memories and  recognition of how they helped create who we are.  Even now I find myself watching people and imaging stories when I'm waiting.  She would have laughed at how unimaginative smartphones are.

 

Happy Mother's Day Mom.

 

the power of the liberal arts

a minipost

Tomer Hanuka of the School of Visual Arts in New York asked his third year illustration students to create a post-pandemic New Yorker cover.   Some of the pieces were so moving that he posted them on Twitter where they quickly went viral.   So viral that an article appeared in The Washington Post.

 

The power of art never ceases to amaze me.  I'm clearly not an artist, but think visually.  The few beginner art classes I had in school as a teenage played a big role in how I think abstractly.   I don't understand why art, and for that matter liberal arts in general, are on the cutting block these days.  Somehow they're not seen as relevant for the job market.  I think they're necessary if the student is preparing for life long learning.  Of course I'm biased as I was a liberal arts major (physics and math are liberal arts).

 

I've spent some time trying to link art and physical science programs in a couple of colleges. No details as it's been political and was interrupted by the pandemic, but I'm still enthusiastic.  The fact that one of the physics professors is in a rock band helps..

 

natural conditions

a minipost

Natural conditions impact outdoor sports.  Tokyo in late July and early August is "interesting" - it's very hot with humidity rated as oppressive about 60% of the time.  Pleasant weather doesn't return until the Fall, but TV demands drive the Olympic schedule.  Some endurance events will probably be run at night and athletes will be adding high temperature conditioning to their training routines in the next month or two.   Excessive heat has important physics and physiology consequences and the understanding of physiology has changed a lot in the past decade (you can drink too much in endurance events and electrolyte drinks are ineffective).  Perhaps something for future posts, but for now let's stick with the wind.  

 

During the Olympics Tokyo will probably have consistent winds around 7 mph mostly from the South or East.  To establish a record events like the 100 and 200 meter sprint, 110 meter hurdles and the long and triple jumps record the wind velocity and require a trailing windspeed to be less than 2 meters per second - about 4.5 mph - measured at the track.  The wind doesn't matter much within a race, but qualifications can be biased if the wind changes much between qualifying events. 

 

You'd think a tailwind would always be advantageous for hurdlers, but they have to mentally adjust their strides and launch points for a variety of winds and only the best can handle a variety of conditions.  Long jumpers have to adjust their approach to launch as close to the takeoff point as possible and not foul. Assuming they succeed, a trailing wind can be a big advantage.  Except for record setting pole vaulting is similar.  The height they clear is related to the square of takeoff speed so a tailwind can be a big help.  Oddly there's no wind assistance limit for records. Perhaps an approaching hurricane would be useful in world record attempts.

 

Closed road course races are problematic.  One might think tailwind and headwind portions average out, but if the wind is at a constant velocity, the headwind portions are always slower (here's a simple explanation).  Of course there's the larger problem of shoe performance so maybe we're at a point where records aren't terribly meaningful in running.

 

For some sports the wind adds an interesting dimension.  The density of a beach volleyball is low compared to other most other sports balls, so the wind makes a big difference.  Additionally volleyballs have interesting aerodynamic properties in airspeeds between 14 and 17 meters per second - speeds commonly seen in the women's game and exploited by the better players.  Teams must to adjust for windspeed and direction, but events often go on in strong  and gusty winds - sometimes with heavy rain, which is not unlikely in Tokyo during the Olympics.  

 

Many other sports are impacted by the wind, but last Spring the final project in a science of sports class I taught got my attention.  An amateur bicycle racer/biology major proposed human powered flight.   You would charge a battery by frantically pedaling  generator.  After some amount of time you'd take flight adding whatever power you could muster with your legs to what the motor could produce. Finding the right limits for weight,  charging times, and allowable technologies would make or break the sport.  It probably wouldn't be tmuch of a spectator sport, but it would make a great project for engineering students. 

 

looking at the algorithmic economy

minipost

If you think about how society and the Internet, you probably know about Joan Donovan of Harvard's Shorenstein Center.  Among other things she's known for rejecting the notion of the "attention economy" as being somewhat gas lighting.  Instead she uses the phrase "algorithmic economy."

Andy Revkin of Columbia interviewed her this past Friday as part of his Sustain What series.  She talks about the possibility of a path to a public interest Internet while safeguarding speech.  Also how disinformation memes develop and need to be watched and how the current control of interests on the Internet fail.   You may or may not agree with her, but she's one of the deeper thinkers in this area and this is a particularly clear introduction to what she's about.  Andy does a great interview job, pushing back here and there to go deeper.  An excellent way to spend an hour.

leaps of faith

minipost

Yesterday I had my first jab of a Covid-19 vaccine - specifically the Pfizer mRNA vaccine.  Despite political, production, and distribution issues several vaccines appeared and more are coming.  Going from decoding the SARS-CoV-2 genome to first injections took only about a half year and a year later a few hundred million doses have been produced. While some corners were safely cut, the real story - at least for the new mRNA vaccines - began nearly thirty years earlier.  

 

Katalin Karikó's work will certainly win her a Nobel Prize next year.   Here's a good telling of the story.  A major point is the work was judged unworthy and finding support was nearly impossible.  After about ten years another player, Drew Weissman, entered and the two of them managed to crack the final bits of the problem.  He'll certainly be sprinkled with the Swedish holy water too. The mRNA approach is important well beyond the current pandemic - it may mark a fundamental change in medicine.  It wouldn't have happened - at least not as soon as it did - without a certain type of reserch.  

 

Curiosity-driven fundamental research requires a certain type of scientist, time and resources.  While much of it fails to produce an immediately useful result,  it has an established track record of changing the world.  Industries don't do this kind of work anymore.  Most universities shy from it - there's a tendency to want results-focused work.  When it's funded you usually find it in physics and astronomy  rather than the biological sciences and that's a problem.   These leaps are driven by hope and curiosity.  They open doors that often require more than a decade of work - usually by other people in different organizations.   Expanding this work is how you create radical change.  I'd never argue results-driven research should be cut - after all, that's where the next five to twenty years come from.  But I'd love to see the Katalin Karikós of the world given more of a space.  And then there are the spin-offs - a good deal of the instrumentation used in medicine came out of  fundamental physics - but that's another set of stories.

 

making the whole more than the sum of the parts

Basketball is my first love, but the athleticism of beach volleyball is amazing.

_____

Watching the men and women spike, block, and dive around a court that is almost impossible for two people to adequately cover makes one appreciate the elite level of athleticism necessary to be competitive on an international level. After basketball, it may very well may be the second-most exciting international sport.  

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 

 

Sport is often seen as a microcosm of society.  It brings disparate groups come together to peacefully play, watch and cheer.  Sometime it's a vehicle for highlighting social issues and even bringing change.  Looking around more carefully you find more - teamwork is a good example and I'll go there.  

 

People tend to have favorite events.  My wife likes gymnastics, ice skating, and weight lifting (she lifted as an amateur).  I like a few Winter sports, but my favorite sport is beach volleyball.  Requiring little in the way of equipment and having simple rules it's a fairly clean sport.  Easy for some people to get together and knock a ball around as well as being very difficult to master.  Played at the highest levels it's a mental game of strategy and tactics.  Successful two person teams require a set  skills a single player rarely has forcing a mixture of  specialization along with a generalist's skill.  It's this  difficult simplicity that attracts me.¹  

 

The real reason for the post is to focus on what makes a successful team.  The best teams tend to have a mixture of physical characteristics, types of athleticism and approaches to the game play.  Communication and reading the game and the other players are critically important.  High level players develop court sense - they know where the other players and ball are as well as how that information is changing with time.    And it's just them - they can't use a coach during the game.

 

Sarah Pavan is a friend and half of the current women's world champion team that was just named one of the most significant volleyball teams of the last decade.  (the link is worth checking out as it shows some of what makes them an unusual and great team)   They're an example of finding success by celebrating differences.   Sarah is shy and somewhat introverted while Melissa Humana-Paredes, known in the sport as the smiling assassin,  is a five alarm joyful extravert.  Sarah is a strategic player, some call her the most cerebral player in the game, while Melissa is one of the most intuitive players.  They manage to bring their differences together without changing each other.  

 

Social scientists who study teamwork in the workplace, military and other areas regularly point out three main components of the most successful teams (individual skill is not one of them): the ability to communicate freely, empathy (that's a loaded word, but I'll leave it at that), and having women on the team.   I sent a video link to a match to a professor who studies verbal and non-verbal communication.  She noted Sarah and Melissa appear to have mastered an almost off-the-chart skill level.  Empathy is more difficult to nail down, but these two seem to know what each other is thinking on and off the court.  And, of course, they have women on the team nailed down.

 

There are probably lessons here and in other areas of sports applicable to teams outside of sports.  I've had a couple of fascinating discussions comparing and contrasting the dynamics of physics collaborations, movie animation teams and beach volleyball. 

__________

¹ Not quite the whole story.  There isn't a lot of money in the sport and the players are very approachable and enthusiastic. It's part of the sport's atmosphere.   I'm also interested in the physics of what's going on, but that would probably happen in any sport - the first time I seriously watched curling I had to work out why the stone curled the "wrong" way. 

 

measurement grounded activity recommendations

A minipost on staying healthy

 

For the last twenty years or so it's been increasingly clear that exercise is a powerful drug large benefits and few if any downsides.  Recommendations for how much across wide ranges of populations are improving, but historically have been educated guesses and extrapolations based on inadequately sized studies.  Fitbits, Apple watches and other wearables that measure and record movement are revolutionizing how the science is done.  Study sizes and data quality have increased dramatically and are being correlated with real measures of health from physicals and other widespread measures.  New targeted recommendations based on the improved studies are emerging with recommendations for various age groups and differing physical abilities and medical conditions, acceptable sedentary behavior, a better understanding of the depression-fighting power of physical movement and so on.  

 

The British Journal of Sports Medicine has dedicated their latest issue to the new device-grounded WHO physical activity recommendations and has posted it outside their paywall. Perhaps most important is the WHO 2020 Guidelines article, but most of the articles are interesting and written for the non-specialist.  They also posted an informative twenty minute podcast episode:

BMJ talk medicine · The 2020 WHO Guidelines on Physical Activity with Prof Fiona Bull and Dr Juana Willumsen. Ep #456

 

If you're looking for some serious strength and conditioning exercises, Sarah has put together a few on her YouTube page. They're aimed more at those already in good shape who don't have access to a gym.  Just look for those labeled strengthening and conditioning - the rest are aimed at beginning volleyball players.  At the other end of the scale walking is an excellent exercise.

And a simple recommendation from me.  Getting out in the cold weather away from people is an excellent way to get exercise.  As a native Montanan I offer one bit of advice on dressing for the cold: layered clothing.  It can make the difference between a pleasant bit of outdoor activity and being cold, wet and miserable. 

 

 

 

checking out your neighborhood

minipost and recommendation

The books you wore out when you were fourteen or fifteen are probably serious hints about your dreams and direction.  One of the two I wore out was a Norton's Star Atlas and Reference Handbook.   Beautiful, wonderful star charts to find your way around the night sky.  The graphical design was (and still is) stunning and it just works.  It cost a fortune in the day, but so wonderful.

 

Every now and again someone publishes a survey that claims only a small fraction of Americans under 30 or 35 have seen the Milky Way. That's a shame.  On a sufficiently clear dark night it's about as beautiful as anything I've seen in Nature.  Light pollution has largely taken it from us.

 

But even in suburban areas you can still see some stars and planets and the Fall in much of Europe and North America offers crisp clear skies.  Checking out our stellar neighborhood is much more inspiring than watching TV, but you need a guide to make any progress. Although I still love my Norton's (I've been through several editions), the better entryway is to use an app.  At least a dozen exist.  My clear favorite on iOS is Sky Safari at about three dollars on the App Store.  (they also have an Android version, but I haven't used it).  Go for the low-end version - currently Sky Safari 6 AR - the more expensive versions are used to drive computerized telescopes.

 

The beauty of apps like this is they know location and the time of day.  Then, using the phone or pad's compass and gyroscope, they calculate and display the section of sky you're pointed at.   Change the display magnification to roughly match the sky and it's sort of augmented reality. You can identify stars and planets as well as search for them and learn the constellations. Playing around with the settings is useful (particularly turning off the background music), but the defaults for star brightnesses displayed roughly matches the human eye in a semi-dark area.  You can also turn off the compass and gyros and explore the sky indoors.

 

If you get hooked the next thing would be a good pair of binoculars .. stay away from telescopes for awhile. 

 

 

 

take it outside

a minipost

 

Other than the new graduate student, most of us have worked together for a few years.  This morning we carried our folding chairs across the large lawn struck by the novelty of seeing each other without glass, silicon and coordinated electrical signals getting in the way. It was our first face to face meeting since late February.

 

It would have happened earlier if we didn't believe the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus couldn't be effectively carried by aerosols, but there's too much evidence to the contrary.  Aerosol clouds move and disperse quickly outdoors, so here we were with our face masks and some distance from each other.  Someone brought an easel with large sheets of paper and a few markers and we were off.  

 

A few things cropped up right away.   It gets hot sitting in the Sun for any length of time (you'd think we'd have more sense, but my type generally lacks it).  It was difficult hearing each other.  I can imagine a smartphone app that could take care of that - a local audio conference cloud.  (Gregg - this would be a good student project - I can think of several ways to do it).  One could also imagine iPad screen sharing, but I don't think it would work as well for our discussions - your mileage may vary.

 

We did manage to get a lot done - much more than the Zoom calls we've had.  There's a lot of "out of band" communication that takes place when you're face to face. 

 

I doubt that many would do this on a regular basis, but it raises an interesting point.  Indoors plus an aerosol transmission vector are a bad combination.  To make indoors work you need good fresh air exchange - perhaps a room volume every few minutes.  (Exactly how thoroughly and quickly isn't well-known yet.  This isn't anywhere as bad as measles for example.) Opening windows and doors using fans can do it.  The same with a properly balanced HVAC system .. but that can be difficult and expensive.  Most building systems recirculate air.  You can pass the air through a high-spec HEPA filter (note - HEPA is not a type of filter, but rather a standard).  Unfortunately they restrict airflow and it takes a lot of power to push air enough through.  I'd bet a fair amount of money most classrooms and offices aren't up to the task.

 

I jokingly suggested perfume, cigarette smoke, or incense smoke as a test to someone who studies aerosol physics.  They said it was a good idea.  You shouldn't be able to smell these kind of sources in a properly ventilated room unless you're very close.  Another test is CO₂ level.  A classroom full of people shouldn't register over 800ppm after an hour has gone by.  Building managers are often equipped to test CO₂ and volatile gas levels (you shouldn't be able to smell the carpet either). 

 

In many countries this won't be a big deal.  They've managed to get a handle on the situation with the ability to find and isolate hotspots.  How safe it is to have k-12 kids in schoolrooms is likely to be an experiment we'll see played out.  Colleges, restaurants and bars are probably a clearer call. Such decisions are well beyond my pay grade.