6: Vitruvius decries excessive recognition and financial rward for athletes.
Ken Young (young@phys.washington.edu)
Tue, 7 Apr 1998 22:49:55 -0700 (PDT)
The ancestors of the greeks held the celebrated wrestlers who were victors
in the Olympic , Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemaean games in such esteem,
that,
decorated with the palm and crown they were not only publicly thanked, but
were also, in their triumphant return to their respective homes, borne to
the cities and countries in 4 horse chariots, and were allowed pensons for
life from the public revenue.
.... complains that athletes receive more recognition than scholars.
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sports with their focus on phsical prowess and keen compeititon, are
vestigial and smbolic reenactments of the life and death struggles,
challenges and achievements which form the very fabric of early human
evolultionary history.
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Aristotle and the physics of sports.
... the animal that moves makes its change of osition b pressing against
that which is beneath it ; and so, if the latter slips away too quickly to
allow that which is setting itself in motion upon it to press against it,
or if it offers no resistance at to that which is moving, the animal
cannot move itself at all upon it.
For that which jumps performs that movement by pressing both on its own
upper part and on that which is beneat its f eet; for the parts in a way
lean upon one anther at their joints, and, in general that which preses
leanw on tht which is pressed.
.....
Hence athletes jump farther if they hae the weights in their hands than if
they have not, and runners run aster if they swing their arms; for in the
extnsion of the arms there s a kind of leaning upon the hands and wrists.
Ken Young
Dept of Physics Box 351560
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195-1560
Tel: 206 543 4186 Fax: 206 543 1104
Email: young@phys.washington.edu