The Physics Of Pole-Vaulting

Of course, with the London Olympics going on, there's a lot of articles examining the physics associated with various athletic events.

This one is rather interesting, because it shows you the WRONG way of analyzing the physics of pole vault, and that using such a result will produce a ridiculously fast speed that a pole vaulter will need to clear such heights. Often, this is how we do physics, and when we realize that there has to be something more beyond what we currently understand. When the result of a current idea doesn't match reality, we have to figure out what went wrong - whether we didn't account for everything that's involved, or that our description is inadequate. In this case, it is the former (not accounting for the flexing of the pole), while our description (Newton's laws) is still valid.

Zz.