Helpful Handicap

Quirk writes "National Geographic has an interesting article connecting the Olympics of ancient Greece with the modern principles of physics. The ancient Greeks used hand weights called halteres held in each hand when attempting the Olympic contest of the standing long-jump. The idea of hand held weights in the long-jump might at first seem counterintuitive but the idea is scientifically sound and was supposedly first fairly accurately explained by no less a person than Aristotle, the father of syllogistic logic."

Aristotle...

[tps12]

He's the guy who said that objects move in straight lines on Earth. He'd therefore obviously never seen a long jump, so I wouldn't place too much faith in his reasoning.

Re:Aristotle...

[silicon_synapse]

Define a straight line. "Straight" is very subjective.

Re:Aristotle...

[Dannon]

I had a professor once who, when asked if he would be grading a test on a curve, would answer that, since spacetime is curved due to gravity, most likely, yes....

Hope that was a STEEP curve...

[Tsar]

There is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in your philosophy. -- Shakespeare's Hamlet

The actual line is, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Hamlet says it in Act I, Scene 5, IIRC.

Re:Hope that was a STEEP curve...

[Descartes]

First of all, who cares?

Second, couldn't it just be "There are more things in heaven and earth...than are dremt of in your philosophy." instead?

ellipsis!

Re:Hope that was a STEEP curve...

[Tsar]

First of all, who cares?

You do, Descartes, or you would not have replied.

Second, couldn't it just be "There are more things in heaven and earth...than are dremt of in your philosophy." instead? ellipsis!

Actually, that's "dreamt." ;) Yes, an ellipsis would have been fine (I can't believe I'm involved in this discussion), but his version of the one-line quote had four inaccuracies, of which the omission of Horatio's name was only one. Proximo satis pro administratio, I suppose, but surely deserving of a goodhearted jab, considering that it sigged a joke about grading on the curve.

Now, a bit of on-topic humor...

The long-jumping champ from Algiers
Reduced his onlookers to tears
when in celebration
expressing elation
He bashed in his head with halteres.

Re:Aristotle...

[JUSTONEMORELATTE]

Didn't Aristotle also posit that light comes from within the eye? IIRC, it was based in part on interviews with guys who had received a sword to the head (opening an eyeball) who reported a bright flash of light at the point of impact, and darkness thereafter.
--

yes but...

[laard]

What kind of (dis)advantage would this give in the aquatic events?

Re:yes but...

[JUSTONEMORELATTE]

What kind of (dis)advantage would this give in the aquatic events?

A somewhat Darwinian one, perhaps?

OT: Reminds me of lifeguard training from my youth. There really was nothing to prepare you for the first time you retrieve the 10lb brick from the bottom of the 14' (4m) end of the pool. You get down there, you grab the brick and look to the surface, then you try to swim with just your feet kicking, and the surface just ain't getting any closer!
--

Awesome if it pans out.

[Ashurbanipal]

When I studied the archeology of the period, we were told that the distances achieved by Greek (standing) long jumpers could not be achieved by (presumably better nourished, better trained) athletes today.

Everybody assumed it was because of the halteres, but nobody could manage to figure out the technique by trial and error (at least when I was in school, shortly before the extinction of the dinosaurs).

If this works, we should definitely re-introduce it to the games. Obviously it requires athletic skill, but it doesn't require expensive accoutrements like luges, luge tracks, skis, carbon-fiber poles, etc. etc. etc... just a couple of rocks. Let's have a contest that doesn't favor the rich nations quite so much. That way we can be prouder of winning it :^).

Re:Awesome if it pans out.

[gene_tailor]

>If this works, we should definitely re-introduce it to the games

That would be cool, but we'd have to re-introduce the standing long jump; apparently the modern Olympic event is a long jump with a running start, so it's not clear that the halteres make any difference with that.

How would you expect it to work?

[ZahrGnosis]

I guess I can see the argument that more weight means you have to do more work to jump far, but my intuition was confused by this article. I'd have thought that weights in the hands would obviously give a benefit.

Basically you get to throw the objects out in front of you and then have them pull you along, without really sacrificing anything.

Don't most people jump by swinging their arms forward first (even if their hands are empty)? I'd think the same principle was at work.

Anyway, it seems weird that this wasn't obvious, although I believe the math may be hard to model.

Re:How would you expect it to work?

[Steve S]

This is true, but you also get to jettison the weights backwards once you've launched, adding even more momentum to your jump. I think that's the part that most people don't get.

Aristotle

[Anonymous Coward]

Aristotle also believed men were smarter than women because they had more teeth. He never bothered to check if men actually have more teeth than women, though. Use Aristotle in your appeals to authority sparingly.

Re:Aristotle

[Descartes]

Here here.

Although he is credited with inventing syllogistic logic he often demonstrates that he doesn't fully understand it. E.g. in Ethics he often "proves" an argument by making the conclusion one of his premises, bad form.

Hmmmm.

[g(zerofunk.org)]

Wasn't that the guy that hung out with Bill and Ted for sometime?
Oh, wait. That was SoCrates. heh.

More data

[gene_tailor]

For the visually oriented, there's pictures of halteres in the commentary in Nature [nature.com] along with another brief article. The technical description and data to support this theory about how the halteres were beneficial is here [nature.com], but I think this is only accessible to Nature subscribers.