A serious question: How fast can the 100m ever be run?

[jiggajagga]

OK we all saw Bolt coast to a 9.69 in the 100 metres and if he'd ran to the end possibly a 9.6 sec run.

OK here' is the serious question.
Lets assume shall we that one day someone will beat Bolt and run 9.5 secs. then someone else 9.4 yes?

OK then about eventually 8.9 secs? 8.7? 8.1? 7.5? etc etc etc.

Question. Is there a time to come when scientists will say " Its no use trying to beat this time. This is the ultimate speed of a human".

Or....will we continue ( should we survive as a species) to continue to run faster and faster until the time arrives in eons where we run the 100 metres is 0.00000001 secs?

PS
Pole vault 20 mtrs?

long jump 15 mtrs?

1500 mtrs in 2 mins?

The mind boggles!!

 

[Crispy]

http://condellpark.com/kd/sprintlogistic.htm

they reckon 9.48 is the fastest a man can run 100m, based on a logarithmic fit to the record runs so far.

 

[jiggajagga]

Good site Crispy.
However, if you were a runner 500 years into the future and you were told by scientists that it was impossible to run faster what would you do.......?

Run faster....! to prove them wrong as humanity has done throughout history.
They said it was impossible to go to the moon, to fly, etc, etc all disproved.

The only thing that DOES remain impossible is for an elephant with diarrhea to wipe its arse on a piece of confetti!!

 

[Crispy]

Well, a time of 1 second is obviously completely impossible, so there is a limit. Really, you should be motivated to beat the 7 other guys on the day, not the lucky guy running downhill with a tailwind 10 years ago!

 

[London_Calling]

Isn't it mostly about medical stuff and technology now, diet, clothes, shoes, the material the track is made of, the grooves in the track . . . ?

Plus the pyramid base gets larger every Olympics - can't be too much of Africa, South America, Asia, where talent goes unnoticed and undeveloped now.

 

[Santino]

We'll develop even more accurate clocks and cameras so that runners can break records by tiny fractions of a second.

 

[coccinelle]

So, in the best part of 100 years (ie since the dawn of modern athletics to the present day), the world 100m record has improved by nine tenths of one second and in that time we have been repeatedly thrilled and excited.

I reckon we will continue to be excited over the next hundred years but it will be by hundredths and then by thousandths of a second

 

[FridgeMagnet]

We were discussing this in a restaurant the other day. I said that, given that in the future somebody might develop psychic powers enabling them to accelerate far beyond our current abilities, it was probably the point at which, over 100m, so much energy would be expended that heat due to air friction would completely disintegrate the runner.

Given that a stray body part might fly past the finishing line even under those circumstances, it would have to be the point where runners were completely vapourised, and that vapour had time to stop dead.

I predict that in the year 2602, this limit will be reached, and legions of genetically-engineered huge-brained levitating psychic super-athletes will have to be melted down in the flesh vats, as there will be no further point to the 100m sprint.

 

[poului]

rfvm nuyl

It's taken 40 years for the 100m record to get from 9.95 to 9.69, just to give you an idea of the rate of the progress - though surely it becomes exponential the shorter the times get?

 

[onemonkey]

and how much faster if they are allowed to take drugs?

 

[Crispy]

I want to see a no-holds barred olympics to further the state of the art in performance enhancing drugs, genetic modifications and cybertechnology.

 

[cliche guevara]

I want to see a no-holds barred olympics to further the state of the art in performance enhancing drugs, genetic modifications and cybertechnology.

Fuck yeah. Ultralympics would be

 

[aylee]

All very interesting.

There is no doubt that Bolt is capable of doing quite a bit better than 9.69, given that he was almost skipping over the line at the end of the 100m final.

I also think that it's dangerous to assume that legitimate technologies can't improve performance to a significant extent .... look at the effect of that Speedo swimsuit on the swimmers' performance.

I reckon that I will see a sub-9.5 second 100m in my lifetime.

But I won't be doing it .... I'd be lucky to break 20 seconds in my present state of fitness.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

it will be intresting to see runners who have developed powers to fold space time to achive a faster run

 

[toblerone3]

100 metres has already been covered in less than 2 seconds by several people.

 

[toblerone3]

100 metres has already been covered in less than 2 seconds by several people.

Terminal velocity of skydivers is about 200 kph.

 

[bi0boy]

http://condellpark.com/kd/sprintlogistic.htm

they reckon 9.48 is the fastest a man can run 100m, based on a logarithmic fit to the record runs so far.

Based on that logorithmic fit, 9.69 will be acheived around 2037

However based on their exponential fit, 9.69 will be acheived in about 2010.

Given Bolt's performance, I therefore predict a zero speed will be acheived in 3200

 

[jiggajagga]

Could it be that the record will not be beaten in the future not because of science but because "we can't be arsed"?

In all these sci-fi mags humans of the future are portrayed as feeble things with huge brains. Perhaps we "can't be bovvered" will bring an end to the effort or will we achieve the fastest speed in the universe?

No, not light but the speed of thought? ( Plays eerie sci-fi 1950s music)

 

[isitme]

or someone really really tall who can go 100m in one step

 

[jiggajagga]

or someone really really tall who can go 100m in one step

I'd love to see the 1 metre dash!

and the wardrobe shifting hurdles!!