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Snake hips, good core strength and a willingness to look slightly ridiculous all come in helpful for those wishing to master the art of hula hooping. Now scientists have concluded that an hourglass figure may also be advantageous.

The study, involving gyrating robotic figures of various dimensions, suggests a narrow waist and large hips are optimal for keeping a hoop spinning in a stable position. But those with less curvy physiques may be able to compensate by making larger hip movements at a faster pace, the analysis concluded.

“You need to throw the hoop sufficiently fast as your initial condition. You also need sufficient curvature of the body. You also need a sufficiently sloped body,” said Olivia Pomerenk, a PhD candidate at New York University and co-author of the analysis.


The paper is the culmination of about five years of research by applied mathematicians at New York University, who began investigating because “there’s such a fundamental question about how the hoop actually stays up”.

“It seems as though your body is only pushing the hoop outwards, you can’t immediately understand what is holding it up,” said Pomerenk, who joined the project more recently. “It’s a seemingly simple system, but actually involves quite intricate maths.”

To tackle this mystery, the researchers 3D printed a series of plastic shapes: cylinders, cones and hourglass-like figures (hyperboloids) with varying slopes and curvatures. “A cylinder has no slope and no curvature. A cone has slope but no curvature – it is angled but it’s a flat line,” said Pomerenk. An hourglass has both slope and curvature.…..

www.theguardian.com

Hourglass figure ideal for mastering art of hula hooping, study finds

Researchers at New York University conclude a narrow waist and large hips are optimal for keeping a hoop spinning
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
Optimus Prime said:
Snake hips, good core strength and a willingness to look slightly ridiculous all come in helpful for those wishing to master the art of hula hooping. Now scientists have concluded that an hourglass figure may also be advantageous.

The study, involving gyrating robotic figures of various dimensions, suggests a narrow waist and large hips are optimal for keeping a hoop spinning in a stable position. But those with less curvy physiques may be able to compensate by making larger hip movements at a faster pace, the analysis concluded.

“You need to throw the hoop sufficiently fast as your initial condition. You also need sufficient curvature of the body. You also need a sufficiently sloped body,” said Olivia Pomerenk, a PhD candidate at New York University and co-author of the analysis.


The paper is the culmination of about five years of research by applied mathematicians at New York University, who began investigating because “there’s such a fundamental question about how the hoop actually stays up”.

“It seems as though your body is only pushing the hoop outwards, you can’t immediately understand what is holding it up,” said Pomerenk, who joined the project more recently. “It’s a seemingly simple system, but actually involves quite intricate maths.”

To tackle this mystery, the researchers 3D printed a series of plastic shapes: cylinders, cones and hourglass-like figures (hyperboloids) with varying slopes and curvatures. “A cylinder has no slope and no curvature. A cone has slope but no curvature – it is angled but it’s a flat line,” said Pomerenk. An hourglass has both slope and curvature.…..

www.theguardian.com

Hourglass figure ideal for mastering art of hula hooping, study finds

Researchers at New York University conclude a narrow waist and large hips are optimal for keeping a hoop spinning
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
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I could never hula hoop to save my life.
 
Booker said:
I could never hula hoop to save my life.
Click to expand...
It’s truly the devil’s toy, closely followed by the pogo stick, fork that thing

How did that funding pitch go?

“I propose an experiment in which I study hippy women hula hoop……for science. You may remember me from last year’s failed pitch ‘does doing jumping jacks in wet t-shirts burn more calories?’”
 
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I thought it was simply because a year is a larger percentage of your life when you’re younger, didn’t think there was anything more to it than that

When your 10 a year is a full 10% of your life (really more that than since you probably don’t have many memories before 5 or so) versus a year at 50 is a blip

1986 and 1987 were completely different years to me but the last 20 years are all a mixed up blur

“Did that happen in 2005 or 2015?” And I legit don’t know
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…..“Physical time is not mind time,” as mechanical engineering professor and author of Time and Beauty: Why Time Flies And Beauty Never Dies, Adrian Bejan, puts it. “The time that you perceive is not the same as the time perceived by another.”

One side of the equation in explaining this phenomenon is physiological. Remember as a kid when the summer holidays felt elastic, a never-ending wad of chewing gum that kept on extending as hours melted away on lazy afternoons?

There’s an actual science behind that.

“The brain receives fewer images than it was trained to receive when young,” argues Bejan.

He theorises that the rate at which we process visual information slows down as we age; as the size and complexity of the networks of neurons in our brains increase, the electrical signals must travel greater distances, leading to slower signal processing.

The result?

We perceive fewer “frames-per-second” as we get older, and therefore time feels like it’s passing quicker. It’s like a flipbook – the fewer the number of pictures, the quicker you flick to the end.

“People are often amazed at how much they remember from days that seemed to last forever in their youth,” he said. “It’s not that their experiences were much deeper or more meaningful, it’s just that they were being processed in rapid fire.”

Plus, the less time we’ve experienced, the greater a proportion of our lives a set period of time actually is.

For a four-year-old, a year is a much bigger percentage of their overall lifespan thus far than it is for a 40-year-old – so no wonder it feels longer and more significant.

While there’s not much we can do about these physiological elements, there are other important factors at play that we do have some control over.

Another reason that time feels longer when we’re younger is that the brain is programmed to hang on to new experiences, says Bejan – and when we’re young, we’re having new experiences all the time.

There’s so much for a child encountering the world afresh to absorb and digest each day.

After all, in the beginning, everything we do is the first time we’ve ever done it.

The older we get, the more likely it is that we’re clocking up fewer and fewer new experiences with each year that passes.

This is partly because, naturally, the more stuff we experience, the less new stuff there is to experience.

But part of it is due to human nature; with age, we can become increasingly stuck in old habits, overly comfortable with the familiar and unwilling to pursue novelty or challenge ourselves to step into the unknown.

Even trying a new food can feel like a bridge too far.

If we’re doing the same things week-in, week-out though, we’re not presenting our brains with anything juicy or remarkable to hang on to.

With few fresh memories made, weeks blend into months, blend into years, with little to differentiate them. Time has, to all intents and purposes, sped up………


www.independent.co.uk

The scientific reason years get faster as we get older – and how to slow them down

Ever feel like time seems to be speeding up as you age? The key could be to shake up your routine, writes Helen Coffey
www.independent.co.uk www.independent.co.uk
 
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Isaac Newton watched the apple fall and formed his theory. He didn't wait around long enough to see it go back up. It does.
 
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