Chris recently posted about ice skating, so I thought I would put in a plug for this most worthy endeavor. Chris and I share more in common than merely our disdain for stealingest cities. We both grew up in the South, where if you mention ice, you're likely to get ice tea instead of a skating rink.
Why is ice skating fun? Because when you walk, run, or jump on a pogo stick, every step you take brings you to a full stop. But when you skate, every push adds to your cummulative velocity, so that you can go increasingly faster. In other sports, such as crew, you get to coast a bit, but the coefficient of friction just isn't as good as on ice. I haven't done much roller blading, but in my experience, stopping on roller blades is not all that easy. Stopping on ice is relatively easy once you get the hang of it.
Theorem: Sport x is fun --> Sport x is more fun on ice
Like most things, ice skating is probably best picked up when you're a kid, but there are good reasons to try this when you are older. First, sure, kids can start to skate at the age of 3 or 4 and by the time they are 7 or 8 they are skating really well. But that's 4-5 years of skating! While kids are relatively fearless and have a center of gravity closer to our Earth's core, they are not particularly analytical about what they are doing.
So my advice is to keep trying it until you just can't stop (ummm, but better learn to stop too I guess).
Do you offer any proof for this Theorem? Or is it a little like Fermat's Last? It seems simple, but will take centuries to prove. Maybe it should just be called "Cytron's Conjecture".
Posted by: Brodie at December 15, 2002 10:13 AM
I will claim proof by lack of a compelling counterexample.
Posted by: rkc at December 15, 2002 3:28 PM