- Physicist and stunt rider create World's first 'Einstein Flip'
In the stunt, 18-year-old Wallace, a competitor in extreme sports events around the world, launched off a six-feet high ramp and spun backwards through 360 degrees while simultaneously folding his bike underneath him in a move known to BMX devotees as a ‘tabletop’. At one point, onlookers saw Wallace upside down, travelling at 15mph, with his head 12-feet off the floor.
Czerski, a keen sportswoman and diver herself, said: “I spent a lot of time looking at the physics behind various stunts, trying to understand the limits of what is physically possible to determine how far we could push the parameters with our new creation. I then tested our ideas using a computer simulation to plot a new stunt.”
The stunt draws upon a variety of physics theories including the conservation of angular momentum and Newton's laws of motion.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
 Comments:
|
