No, I don't mean my personal exhaustion, although I am a bit fatigued from Christmas shopping.
In a wide-ranging article in the London Sunday Times, the authors speculate on a time in the not-so-distant future when human beings will no longer be physiologically capable of setting world track and field records.
Stuck Records: Report claims that no world records will be set after 2060
The article discusses Florence Griffith-Joyner's 1988 WR in the 100m, and speculates on whether drug use contributed to a record that will never be broken. The article also has an interesting account of Bob Beamon's astonishing long jump in the 1968 Olympics, a jump so far beyond previous standards that officials couldn't use the mechanical measuring device on the pit and had to measure the jump twice with steel tape.
Are humans reaching their physiological limits? Those who have made such predictions in the past tend look pretty silly today, but common sense suggests that there must be a limit.
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3 comments:
There are no limits. We'll have the 3 min. mile, then the 2 min. mile, then the 1 min. mile, and so on. Only if mankind ceases to exist will records not fall.
Leaving aside the big philosophical question for a moment, I think it's an interesting question ask when will the mile record dip below 3 minutes?
Surely the 1M record can't be at a faster pace than the 800m record, so first, human beings have to run the 800 in less than 1:30, an 11-second improvement over Wilson Kipketer's current record.
It took human beings 100 years to shave off the last 11 seconds from the 800m record. Let's assume it takes at least that much time to take off the next 11 seconds. So if all goes well, we'll be looking at a 1:29 800 record in 2107. How long after that will human beings be able to run twice that distance at the same pace?
Well, the first time a person ran sub 2:00 was in 1873. It took 80+ years before Bannister ran twice that distance at the same pace. If it took that long again, then we're looking at 2187 -- 180 years from now -- before we see 2:59.9.
But then that assumes a linear progression, and the data suggests that world record progression is asymptotic -- that the rate of progress is slowing down. What if it takes twice as long to make the same absolute amount of progress? Then we're looking at almost 400 years before someone runs a sub-3:00 mile.
Seems perilous to make any predictions. If one assumes the current state of the art in the areas of medicine and technology then it may be sensible to pose some physiologically based limitations. There are variables we can't possibly factor in that will most likely change what's possible, sooner or much later.
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