Athletics

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. Why are some people faster than others? – Jon, age 14, Macon, Georgia Usain Bolt, the world’s fastest person, ran a 100-meter sprint at a speed of 23.35 miles per hour (37.57 kilometers per hour). That’s mind-blowingly fast for a human. It’s about the same speed as cruising in a car through your neighborhood or in a school zone. It might not seem that fast when you’re in the car, but for a person? Few runners in the world can even come close. There are several reasons why some people can run very fast while others tend to run more slowly. Genetics – the traits you inherit from your parents – play a role, but so do your choices and experiences. As pediatric exercise scientists, we create and e...

Home runs are exhilarating – those lofting moments when everyone looks skyward, baseball players and fans alike, anxiously awaiting the outcome: run or out, win or loss, elation or despair. Over the past several Major League Baseball seasons, home run numbers have climbed dramatically, including Aaron Judge’s record-breaking 62 homers for the New York Yankees in 2022. Baseball analysts have pointed to many different factors for this surge, from changes in baseball construction to advances in game analytics. Our study, published April 7, 2023, offers solid evidence for another cause – rising global temperatures. What we learned from 100,000 baseball games The physics tell a simple and compelling story: Warm air is less dense than cool air. As air heats up and molecules move faster, the air expands, leaving more space between molecules. As a result, a batted ball should fly farther on a warmer day than it would on a cooler day owing to less air resistance. Th...