Tuesday, May 5, 2009

May sports


If horses could talk....what was Alydar saying to Affirmed? For me, May through June is one of the most irritating times of the year in terms of sports. It is the time of the seemingly endless NBA playoffs. Now there's a possible area of study in time dilation. Time dilation is the idea in special relativity that moving clocks run slow. In other words, time does NOT fly during the NBA playoffs! But the one bright spots at this time in the sports calendar is the Triple Crown. Saturday's Kentucky Derby was quite exciting as a 50 to 1 longshot Mine That Bird took the purse.

Here's a website discussing some physics of horse racing. Secretariat's speed was estimated to be 16.764 m/s or 37.5 mi/hr. Secretariat is a bit earlier than my memory can recall, but what an athlete! Yes I called him an athlete. If golfers are athletes, then certainly the greatest thoroughbred in history is too.