matthen

Things of interest in Maths & Science

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There is a speed limit for walking, go any faster and you can’t resist breaking into a jog.  If we model walking as a constantly falling pendulum, we can see why. The above animation shows your hip as a dot, and the leg you are swinging over as a line. Your next leg appears ahead of you after your swing, and you continue to swing over the next foot. The speed such a pendulum can move at is limited by the strength of gravity and its length, i.e. the length of your legs. This is why we see Apollo astronauts hopping around the Moon, the speed of walking there is unbearably slow! [details] [code]

There is a speed limit for walking, go any faster and you can’t resist breaking into a jog.  If we model walking as a constantly falling pendulum, we can see why. The above animation shows your hip as a dot, and the leg you are swinging over as a line. Your next leg appears ahead of you after your swing, and you continue to swing over the next foot. The speed such a pendulum can move at is limited by the strength of gravity and its length, i.e. the length of your legs. This is why we see Apollo astronauts hopping around the Moon, the speed of walking there is unbearably slow! [details] [code]

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    El límite de velocidad que podemos llevar andando.
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Matt Henderson

I post original stuff about maths, space, computational linguistics and other things that I like. This blog is meant to be accessible and interesting to people of all backgrounds. My undergrad was maths in Cambridge, and I'm now starting research in Speech and Language technology. Email me at If you're new, check out this overview of my posts.

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