Photo: tpower1978 We tend to think of recent technological change as a complex process involving huge amounts of capital and labor (large numbers of researchers and developers). Yet the Winter Olympics should remind us that it is still possible to improve output with a little thought, luck and experimentation.
Consider cross-country skiing. It is now standard for skiers to “skate,” as that enhances speed; yet nobody was doing that when I learned the sport 30 years ago. Similarly, no ski jumper would have spread his skis at an angle 30 years ago, yet today forming one’s skis into a wing is standard and has greatly increased distances. Further afield, stomach ulcers were treated in many ways, until a lone Australian researcher showed they are caused by bacteria. How many other examples are there of recent major improvements in an activity that resulted from a single individual’s insight?
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The V-Style for ski jumping was also invented by an individual:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Bokl%C3%B6v
The sliding seat in rowing was a huge leap forward. It makes your stroke longer and you utilize bigger muscles(legs) for most of the stroke in stead of only using your arms and back.
Also In competitive hot dog eating, dunking the buns in water first to make them easier to swallow has increased consumption rates.
In swimming, a backstroker named David Berkoff (among others) set the world-record in the 100 meter backstroke by staying under-water and using a quick, powerful dolphin kick for 70% of the race (about 35 out of the 50 meters each way) instead of swimming normally on the surface. Many people felt that this technique was… not exactly in the spirit of the competition. Other people were concerned that the next generation of backstrokers would try to imitate him and drown. In addition, the technique proved quite effective in both the butterfly and freestyle events as well. FINA was loath to disallow the technique completely as the world record had already been shattered. So, in an interesting compromise, they changed the rules to require swimmers to surface at or before the 15m mark on each length of the pool. However, to compensate for the WR mark being lowered, they allowed backstrokers to do a modified flip turn at each end of the pool in which the swimmer is allowed to turn onto his front for one rotation of his arms before flipping and touching the wall with his feet. Previously, backstrokers had been required to touch the wall with a hand while still (mostly) on their back.
I’m not disagreeing that Fosbury came up with the flop by himself. And, I’m not surprised that coaches tried to have him revert back since coaches can be very controlling …
I was just pointing out that in the old days the landing pit was made of sawdust and was lower to the ground.
I don’t think Fosbury would have come up with the flop in the days of the sawdust pit. A new jumping method where you land on your head doesn’t sound very promising unless you have a “softer” landing area. The older methods landing mostly feet first.
Fleming and penicilin: his genius was after discovering an event purely by accident, he took note of it and did experimentation to determine if there were any beneficial implications vis-a-vis the treatment of disease.
The scepticism occurs because of the current worship of team playing in selecting and promoting staff. In my view, it’s massively overvalued. Good as a fallback, bad as a paradigm. Nothing much wrong with Einstein as a paradigm, and his performance in the anna mirabilis, 1904 I think, when he produced enough good stuff for several Nobels, while keeping his day job. Or look at the great aircraft designers; always amusing that in the Soviet Union of all places, the planes were named after the lead designer, whereas here we tend to think in terms of the collective. Sure, a quarterback needs a team, but the Superbowl demonstrated the brilliance of those two individuals, not just the need for a team.
In the early 1990s, Réjean Lemelin was a goalie down on his luck, toiling in the minor leagues while under contract with the Boston Bruins.
His desperate measure was a goalie pad made of lighter and less absorbent material. Some scoffed because they thought they would make him *too* mobile and he would careen out of control.
He was soon back in the NHL – until everyone else started using the same pads.
Don’t blame the neutral zone trap for the decrease in hockey scoring in the 1990s. Blame the pads – in addition to making the goalies more mobile, they also facilitate the butterfly style of netminding, as it’s now a lot easier to get up after dropping to your knees.
We were without the fabulous internet until Al Gore invented it and we lived just fine without fear of global warming until Al Gore invented it, too.
We weren’t relaxed enough to use stupid English grammar until George Bush freed us with “strategery.” Nowadays we are free to revel in infelicities like “Absolutely!!!!!” in place of “yes” or stupidities like “The problem is is that ….”