An athlete uses physics to shatter world records - Asaf Bar-Yosef

2,119,352 views ・ 2014-02-18

TED-Ed


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In the early 1960s,
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Dick Fosbury tried his hand at almost every sport,
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but never excelled at anything,
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until, at the age of 16, he turned to the high jump.
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But when he couldn't compete against
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the strong athletes at his college
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using the standard high jump techniques of the time,
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Fosbury tried to jump a different way: backwards.
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Instead of jumping with his face towards the bar,
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bringing each leg over in the
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traditional straddle method,
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he jumped with his back towards the bar.
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Fosbury improved his record by over half a foot,
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and left his coaches amazed
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by this strange new style of high jumping.
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During the next few years,
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Fosbury perfected his high jump style,
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won the U.S. National trials,
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and assured his place in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico.
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In the Olympic Games, Fosbury amazed the world
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with his new technique, winning a gold metal
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with an Olympic record leap of 2.24 meters.
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By the next Olympic Games,
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almost all of the competing of high jumpers
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had adopted what came to be known as
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the Fosbury Flop.
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What's the secret behind the technique?
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It lies in a physics concept
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called the center of mass.
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For every object,
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we can locate the average position of all of its mass
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by taking into account how the mass
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is spread around the object.
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For instance, the center of mass
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of a flat, rectangular object of uniform density
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will be in the intersection of both diagonals,
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in equal distance from each corner.
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We can find the center of mass for other objects
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by similar calculations,
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or by finding the object's balancing point,
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which lies right underneath its center of mass.
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Try balancing a broom by holding it
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and slowly bringing your hands together until they meet.
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This balancing point lies right underneath
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the broom's center of mass.
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We humans also have a center of mass.
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When most people stand up,
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their center of mass is around the belly,
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but what happens to your center of mass
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when you lift your hands in the air?
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Your center of mass moves upwards.
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It moves all the time as you move through the day,
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based on how your body is positioned.
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It can even move outside of your body.
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When you bend forward, your center of mass
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is located below your bent belly
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in a place where there is no mass at all.
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Weird to think about, but that's the average position
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of all your mass.
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Many objects' center of mass
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are outside their bodies.
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Think of doughnuts or boomerangs.
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Now look at the Fosbury Flop, and follow the position
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of the center of mass of the jumper.
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The jumper runs very fast,
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so he can divert his horizontal velocity
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to vertical velocity, and jumps.
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Wait for it...there.
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Look at the jumper's center of mass
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as his body bends backward.
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It's below the bar.
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That is the secret behind the jump.
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With the old, pre-Fosbury techniques,
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the jumper had to apply enough force
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to lift his center of mass above the bar
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by a few inches in order to clear it.
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The Fosbury Flopper doesn't have to do that.
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The genius of the Fosbury Flop is that the jumper
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can apply the same amount of force,
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but raise his body much higher than before.
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That means he can raise the bar so high
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that even when his center of mass
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can't go any higher, his arching body can.
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Fosbury's technique brought
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the high jump to new heights
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by splitting the jumper's body
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away from his center of mass,
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giving it that much more room
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to clear higher and higher bars.
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So the Fosbury Flop may be sports history's
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only great leap forward,
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that is also a great leap backward.
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