Why? The Science of Athletics

174 WHY?-THE SCIENCE OF ATHLETICS training and running at speeds that were constant and which were based upon accurate time schedules. Kennelly's figures show that it requires g times the effort to double the speed. Geo. P. Meade, for his part, when discussing the prob– lem in an article in the New York Herald Tribune, July I Ith, Ig26, having decided that the best way to study the relationship between various rates and distances is to represent them graphically, did this by plotting the relation– ship between the distance run and the time for a unit distance for the then existing world's records. Put very simply, Hill plotted the average speed, yards per second vertically ; and the time occupied in race, seconds, logarithmic scale horizontally. Kennelly gave the logarithm of the average speed in yards per second vertically and the logarithm of time taken horizontally, while Meade represented the rate in seconds per mile ·on a vertical scale and the distance in miles on a horizontal scale, which, beginning with the point representing the 220-yards rate, produced a smooth curve drawn to connect the successive low points on the diagram. The smoothness of the curve was remarkable, but it was not logarithmic and did not closely follow the formula given by Professor Kennelly. . Records as Scientific Data Now let us see what inference may be drawn and what may be learned from the mathematical researches that have been made. The records themselves, as Meade said, have every right to consideration as scientific data, simply because a world's record is not passed nowadays by the International Amateur Athletic Federation until it has been submitted to the closest investigation and scrutiny ; wherefore, to quote Profes~or Hill concerning world's records, "they constitute a vast store of accurate information that may justly be described as a collection of natural constants of muscular effort in the human race". Naturally enough, the track events at the moment