Watching olympic gymnasts feels as though we are watching athletes defy every law of physics. While we watch in awe as gymnasts perform seemingly impossible tricks, these moves can be explained by the three basic laws of physics. We will begin by looking at how newtons laws explain the big picture and move into specific events and tricks.
A small introduction to gymnastics may be useful as well. Women's gymnastics involves four events: Floor, Vault, Beam and the Uneven Bars. Men's on the other hand involves 6: Pommel Horse, Vault, Rings, Parallel Bars, High Bar and Floor. Each event requires strength, flexibility, agility and and the practical use of some basic laws of physics to perform skills ranging from dance moves to strength to the flips and twists.
While the physics behind gymnastics is quite complicated a simplified explantation of Newton's three laws is quite useful. Newton's First Law of Motion states than an object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion will stay in motion, unless acted on by an unbalanced force. What this means to gymnastics is that a gymnast will stay at rest until some force gives him/her the force required to complete the move. Often times it is the gymnasts momentum providing the force to propel his/body.
Newton's Second Law states that the acceleration of an object produced by a net force is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force, in the same direction as the net force, and is also inversely proportional to the mass of the object. What this means to the worls of gymnastics is that in order for the acceleration of the gymnast to increase, the force acting upon her must increase as well. Hence swings on bars before a trick, sprinting down the runway before the vault and running into tumbling passes, all help increase the momentum of the gymnast and the power that she has.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there in an equal and opposite reaction. This law isn't as useful in explaining just how they pull of the crazy tricks, but it does explain how the different appartuses (beam, bars, etc. ) are capable of supporting the gymnast since they are essentialy pushing back on her with the same ammount of force she is placing on them. So when the gymnast lands a jump or flip on the balance beam, the beam is exerting a force on the gymnast.
Newton's Second Law states that the acceleration of an object produced by a net force is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force, in the same direction as the net force, and is also inversely proportional to the mass of the object. What this means to the worls of gymnastics is that in order for the acceleration of the gymnast to increase, the force acting upon her must increase as well. Hence swings on bars before a trick, sprinting down the runway before the vault and running into tumbling passes, all help increase the momentum of the gymnast and the power that she has.
Newton's Third Law states that for every action there in an equal and opposite reaction. This law isn't as useful in explaining just how they pull of the crazy tricks, but it does explain how the different appartuses (beam, bars, etc. ) are capable of supporting the gymnast since they are essentialy pushing back on her with the same ammount of force she is placing on them. So when the gymnast lands a jump or flip on the balance beam, the beam is exerting a force on the gymnast.
2 comments:
Great overall design of the blog. Very classy and interesting.
This would be a great post to enhance with video, so that we can see some of these amazing things in action.
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