I spent a while on Friday morning talking about the physics of the Olympics with a couple of science classes in Tennessee and Lawrence Norris from the National Society of Black Physicists, organized by Adam “@2footgiraffe” Taylor. This was done via a Google hangout, so the video is recorded on YouTube:
The recording seems to have mostly remained on my video feed, which is a little unfortunate. Lawrence didn’t have a camera, though, so he’s a disembodied voice. I liked the first question– “What Olympic event involves the least physics?”– though it’s a tricky one to answer.
Anyway, it was a fun conversation, and since the video is there, and Adam okayed it, I thought I’d share it.
Warm outside temperatures in Sochi caused slipping of skiers etc on snow. I noticed lots of skaters slipping on the rinks too (hard for me to judge how that compares with averages.) I wonder if there is some delicate physical problem with the ice, and a commenter at a Facebook discussion of this said that air exchange etc. means that warm outside temperatures might corrupt the perfection of indoor ice just enough to increase slips. OTOH, official commentators usually pinpointed some mistake of movement that preceded the fall. BTW kudos to that great US skating champ Jeremy Abbott, who fell down hard, then got up to finish fantastically.