Exercise your brain for a moment

So, who's to say another "freak" won't come along at some point? If today's freaks are better than yesterday's freaks. Then tomorrow's freaks certainly can be better than today's freaks.

 

Who's to say that everytime I take a step that I don't destroy some microscopic universe? You're blowing my mind!

Yes, records do fall. But yes there are limits. Are you surmising that someday we're all going to move at the speed of a Benny Hill sketch?

 

Absolutely true, tressel.

My point, having covered a lot of track, is that it is not a logical progression

How many high jumpers have cleared 8 feet? One ...and he did it once.
How many pole vaulters have cleared 20 feet? One man ... many times

There is no logic to it.

 

Perhaps my main question got lost in the initial post. It's simply, if it's not realistic for a record to be lowered past a certain point, where is that certain point? The fact that we can't tell exactly what that and that there are arguments for and against it is what fascinates me.

 

No. I'm surmising that we cannot say exactly how fast is the fastest we ultimately can move - just that it is short of 0.0 seconds.

 

We do know there are human limits. We do not know what they are.

 

So at what point do we say, "That's it. No human ever will run/swim/bike faster than that."

 

We don't because we don't know.

But I guarantee you no one is running 100M in less than 9 seconds in my lifetime.

 

That's pretty much my point.
Now that we're here, I need several beers. It's still 12:20 in the Central time zone. Anyone want to hit up a bar with me?

 

We'll never know just how much mankind could have pushed the limits, if only because the East German doping machine is gone. I think Kristin Otto could have swum the 100 free in 15 seconds flat -- and outlifted Naim Suleymanoglu -- if the Wall hadn't come down. Ah, the cost of freedom.

 

I'm sure someone out there is or has tried to calculate this -- determining the amount of force required to travel a certin distance in x amount of time measured against the amount of force we know the human body absolutely can not stand. Hit the biggest college library near you and you'll probably find someone out there who tried to give you an answer.

 

Can you imagine how famous and mythologized an athlete, particularly a US athlete, would be if he broke the world record in his sport in the Olympic finals of that sport, then promptly died within seconds of its finish?