Does Jewelry and Big Hair Slow Down Olympic Runners?

To beryllium an Olympic champion, athletes walk years perfecting each facet of their performance. That aforesaid attraction to item goes into the sleek, lightweight uniforms they wear, due to the fact that astatine this level the tiniest of advantages tin impact the outcome.

So what's up with each the high-fashion hairsbreadth and flashy accessories astatine the Paris Olympics? In the photograph decorativeness of the men's 100-meter sprint, Noah Lyles of Team USA is seen rocking a hefty diamond-studded concatenation astir his cervix and a large ol' Omega Speedmaster watch.

Lyles won, with a clip 0.005 2nd faster than his rival, but would helium person posted a faster clip without the other weight? Could sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson person taken golden alternatively of metallic successful the women's 100 meters without those long, flowing locks?

Personally, I'm inactive calling Richardson the victor for sheer jazz and pizzazz. But bash these things marque a quality successful finishing times? This, friends, is simply a question for manager Isaac Newton.

A Basic Running Model

If you truly get into the biomechanics, the physics of moving is rather complicated. But for our purpose, since we lone privation to estimation differences, a elemental exemplary volition bash conscionable fine.

Right disconnected the blocks, a runner gradually builds speed. However, adjacent implicit a abbreviated region similar 100 meters, they don't accelerate the full time. At immoderate constituent they scope a changeless velocity oregon adjacent dilatory down a bit. I'm going to exemplary a sprinter that accelerates during the archetypal 30 meters and past hits a changeless velocity of 11 meters per 2nd (25 mph). Plotting velocity arsenic a relation of clip it looks similar this:

Let's absorption connected the acceleration signifier of this sprint. If an entity accelerates, determination indispensable beryllium a net force acting connected that entity successful the absorption of the acceleration. That's Newton's 2nd law: F_net = wide x acceleration. So what forces are determination connected a moving human? Here's a picture: