FOR THE LONGEST KICK or THROW in Football you need this MATHS

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The following maths is suitable for Year 9+

but can be presented to lower grades just to show

maths is cool!

Tennis Math: Is player height a BIG advantage? USA units

Metric version here.

The Australian Open is on at the moment in Melbourne in LOCKDOWN. (We have 1 community-acquired case. Tennis players are in a bubble.)

Is height a BIG advantage in tennis?

Here are the heights of 3 top seeds in the Australian  Open. (See graph below)

No. 1 Novak Djokovic    6ft 1″  (73 in)

No. 6 Alexander Zverev  6ft 6’   (78 in)

No. 8 Diego Schwartzman  5ft 7’  (67 in)

1. Does serve speed increase with height?

That would be an advantage. Here is a Height vs Serve Speed chart for the Top 6 seeds in the tournament:

Find serve speed data here.

There is NO CLEAR HEIGHT ADVANTAGE for serve speed.

2. Does the serve return rate increase with height?

Here is Diego Schwartzman (L) when he defeated Alexander Zverev (R ) in the 2019 US Open.

What is Schwartzman’s Super Power?

Schwartzman, the shortest player on the circuit (see graph above), tops the service returns stats. Highest 2nd serve return rate. Third highest 1st serve return rate. See data below. So agility, speed, and reaction times are also important factors in becoming a tennis star.

Go Schwartzee! Check data here.

Tennis Maths: Is player height a BIG advantage? Metric

USA units post here.

The Australian Open is on at the moment in Melbourne in LOCKDOWN. (We have 1 community-acquired case. Tennis players are in a bubble.)

Is height a BIG advantage in tennis?

Here are the heights of 3 top seeds in the Australian  Open. (See graph below)

No. 1 Novak Djokovic  188cm

No. 6 Alexander Zverev  198cm

No. 8 Diego Schwartzman  170cm

1. Does serve speed increase with height?

That would be an advantage. Here is a Height vs Serve Speed chart for the Top 6 seeds in the tournament:

Find serve speed data here.

There is NO CLEAR HEIGHT ADVANTAGE for serve speed.

2. Does the serve return rate increase with height?

Here is Diego Schwartzman (L) when he defeated Alexander Zverev (R ) in the 2019 US Open.

What is Schwartzman’s Super Power?

Schwartzman, the shortest player on the circuit (see graph above), tops the service returns stats. Highest 2nd serve return rate. Third highest 1st serve return rate. See data below. So agility, speed, and reaction times are also important factors in becoming a tennis star.

Go Schwartzee! Check data here.

Trick 10: A Foolproof Gambling System

Math Mentalist Devises Foolproof Gambling System

Requirements: Smart board/Data Projector

or Chalk & Talk

This is the most awesome way to introduce probability.

Mentalist Derren Brown devises a foolproof gambling system. He sends a girl , Kadisha, the number of a winning horse in race to be run the next day. It wins. He sends her the winning horse and race number 4 more times. She ends up with winnings close to £ 1000 before the final race. Derren convinces her to borrow money for the last bet. She does. She places £4,000 on a horse. Did it win?????

Watch Part 5 of The System

 

 

If you are not convinced Derren Brown can come up with a foolproof system for horse race tipping, let me explain The System. He took 7,776 e-mail addresses, divided them into 6 equal groups and sent each group a different number for a horse in a 6 horse race to be run the next day. Naturally, one group of 1296 had been given the winning horse number.  This group was divided into 6 again and given the number of the ‘winning’ in a six horse race the next day and so on.

Race 1: 7776

Race 2: 1296

Race 3: 216

Race 4: 36

Race 5: 6

Out of 7776 punters, only one punter was given in advance five horse race winners in a row. Was it Kadisha. You will have to watch the Youtube above.

You can watch THE SYSTEM in full here. It takes 47 mins.

Winter Olympics: Beaten by 0.001 seconds

 

In 2014 Winter Olympics Annette Gerristen (below) lost the Gold Medal in the 1000 m Women’s speed skate competition by 0.02 seconds.

Annette Gerritsen fromthe Netherlands

What are the speed skating times for women?

Women’s Speed Skating Calulations:

Here are the speed calcs for Yara Van Kerkhof of the Netherlands in the 2018 Winter Olympics:

If Yara lost the Gold Medal by 0.02 secs (2 hundredths of a second) what would the distance be between the Gold and Silver place getters?

When 1st and 2nd place are separated by 0.02 seconds, they are travelling at almost the same speed. So the second place contestant is:

23.8 cm behind the Gold Medalist

The 2018 Olympic Gold Medalist in the 500m Women’s Speed Skating was Arianna Fontana.

Italy’s Arianna Fontana wins the 500 m Speed Skating 2018 Olympic Gold Medal in 42.569 seconds ahead of Yara van Kerkhof of the Netherlands and Kim Boutin of Canada. 

Men’s Speed Skating:

At longer distances the men’s speed skating speed is similar to the women’s speed above.

If you lose by  0.001 secs…………

Apollo Ono (below) competed in the 1500m men’s speed skating. He has won 8 Olympic Medals.

If a speed skater lost the Gold Medal by 0.001 seconds, the smallest measured time segment at the Olympics, they would be:

1.19 cm

behind the winner. That is less than the length of a small fingernail.

FOOTBALL MATHS: THE LONGEST KICK

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The following maths is suitable for Year 9+

but can be presented to lower grades just to show

maths is cool!

Could you return Andy Murray’s serve?

 

Mathspig is, like, soooooo excited. Tonight I’m gong to watch

TOMAS BERDYCH

Tomas Berdych (CZE) [7] play Andy Murray (GBR) [6] in the Semi-finals at the Australian Tennis Open.

Andy Murray

Some quick maths.

Tomas Berdych is 1.96 METRES (6 FT. 5 IN.) 

While Andy Murray is 1.91 METRES (6 FT. 3 IN.)

But, but, but …. Andy Murray, who is 26 years old and is 2 years younger than Berdych.

Would you be able to return the serve of a top tennis player?

Here is the serve speed of the of the fastest recorded tennis serves in the world:

 

How long would it take a tennis ball traveling at these speeds to reach the service line on the other side of the court?

BUT … BUT … BUT … 

The tennis ball leaves the servers racket approx 3m above the baseline and travels along the hypotenuse to the service line. We must call in Pythagorus Theorem!!!!

 

You can calculate the time it takes a tennis ball to reach the service line for each player in the Top 10 Service Speeds List by using the simple v = x/t equation.

The big question is this:

How fast is YOUR reaction time?

You have to be able to move your racket before the ball arrives.

Can you do it mathspiggies?

You can calculate your reaction time by two methods:

1. The meter rule Method:

See details at Top End Sports Website.

2. Online Reaction Time Test

This is the best reaction time clock I’ve seen because it uses a traffic light system. Here is Mathspig’s reaction time:

Mathspigs reaction time was : 0.33 secs (see above)

So Mathspig would probably be hit on the head by a serve by Samuel Groth.

Could you return Andy Murray’s serve? 

According to Wikipedia fastest service speed times for these two players are:

Andy Murray = 233 km/h (145 mph)

Tomas Berdych = 226.0 km/h (140.4 mph)

Tomas Berdych service speed just beats the fastest female tennis serve by Barbora Záhlavová-Strýcová at 225 km/h (140 mph).

Could Mathspig react in time to return Andy Murray’s server? Could you react in time?

Tomas Berdych’s serve would hit the line after 0.29 secs. Once again, I’d still be hit on the head. Ditto the top female tennis players.

Mathspig might lose if she played in the Aussie Tennis Open, but I’m a pig. I’d win serve GRUNT of the match. Ha!

5. Beaten by 0.001 seconds

Here is a screen grab from the  New York Times article on Speed Skating:

Fractions of a Second: New York Times

Annette Gerritsen fromthe Netherlands

Annette Gerristen lost the Gold Medal in the 1000 m Women’s speed skate competition by 0.02 seconds.

Apollo Ono USA speed skater

Screen Grab NBC Mathletes
Apollo Ono Recorded Speed

From the wonderful NBC Mathletes Video

How far can a speed skater travel in 0.02 secs?

When 1st and 2nd place are separated by 0.02 seconds, they are travelling at almost the same speed. So the second place contestant is:

23.8 cm

behind the winner.

The distance travelled by the winning speed skater in 0.002 seconds would be:

2.38 cm.

So the second place competitor would be 2.38 cm behind.

If a speed skater lost the Gold Medal by 0.001 seconds, the smallest measured time segment at the Olympics, they would be:

1.19 cm

behind the winner. That is less than the length of a small fingernail.

Trick 10: Math Mentalist Devises Foolproof Gambling System

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Math Mentalist Devises Foolproof Gambling System

Requirements: Smart board/Data Projector

or Chalk & Talk

This is the most awesome way to introduce probability.

Mentalist Derren Brown devises a foolproof gambling system. He sends a girl , Kadisha, the number of a winning horse in race to be run the next day. It wins. He sends her the winning horse and race number 4 more times. She ends up with winnings close to £ 1000 before the final race. Derren convinces her to borrow money for the last bet. She does. She places £4,000 on a horse. Did it win?????

Watch Part 5 of The System

 

 

If you are not convinced Derren Brown can come up with a foolproof system for horse race tipping, let me explain The System. He took 7,776 e-mail addresses, divided them into 6 equal groups and sent each group a different number for a horse in a 6 horse race to be run the next day. Naturally, one group of 1296 had been given the winning horse number.  This group was divided into 6 again and given the number of the ‘winning’ in a six horse race the next day and so on.

Race 1: 7776

Race 2: 1296

Race 3: 216

Race 4: 36

Race 5: 6

Out of 7776 punters, only one punter was given in advance five horse race winners in a row. Was it Kadisha. You will have to watch the Youtube above.

You can watch THE SYSTEM in full here. It takes 47 mins.

Get Ready for the Lego Olympics

Get ready mathspigs. You need one Lego Man, Girl, Vampire or Alien each for this exercise. Now we are going to set out the Lego Olympics Athletics track.

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But this story of the Olympics begins with Carl Lewis, one of the greatest athletes of all time who won 9 Olympic Gold medals in 100m, 200m, relay and long jump.

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Carl Lewis

Mathspig needs to find out how big the Lego Olympics track would be. How? Easy.

Carl Lewis will be our standard Lego Man.

I chose Carl Lewis because he kindly gave me his autograph once when I sprinted in high heels across a ballroom floor at a sports dinner in Melbourne and beat all other journalists.  It was my personal best in high heels, I think.

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This means everything at the Lego Olympics  will be

1:50

of the real Olympics.

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The  Lego Bird’s Nest Stadium @ Beijing will be 1/50th of the real Bird’s Nest Stadium. (Not the scale shown here). Pictures by Johor Bahru.

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The Lego Beijing Water Cube Swim Centre will be 1/50th of the Real Water Cube.

EXERCISE 1:

Now mathspiggies over to you. The first thing to do is calculate the Lego Olympic measurements (table below). 

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EXERCISE 2:

Then mark out a Lego Olympics 100m sprint to scale and/or

draw a Lego Olympic track (in chalk, perhaps) and/or

step out a Lego Olympic marathon track and/or

make a pole vault pole to scale for your little Lego Man.

Or bring in a Lego Man/Girl/Pirate and step out the Marathon Track (840m to scale).

This little guy has to run 840 m!!!!! Wow!

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Structure	Real Olympics	Lego Olympics
100m Sprint	100m	2m
400m Sprint	400m
42 km marathon	42,000m
Olympic Pool Length	50m
Olympic Pool Width	25m
Olympic Rowing Course	2,000m
Equestrian Jump Height	2m
Approx Pole Vault Pole Length	5.5m
Javelin Length Men Women	2.6m 2.2m
Olympic Stadium Straight Segment Semi-circle Radius inner Lane Lane Width	84.39m 36.50m 2.5m