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Science Q: Arm Wrestling \"Friction\"?
k, so I am involved in an arm wrestling competition. We lock fists and go at it.
We reach an entirely dead stand still (beat: I was arm wrestling a girl). I am trying my absolute hardest, and so is she, and we reach a stand still. There is a very little amount of back and forth action (maybe up to 5 degrees). After maybe 2 minutes of this, yes I am trying my hardest, the girl gives up. We then went lefty, with the same result, although this time after 2 minutes I just declared "[censored] it, it's a tie." So, the science question: how is this possible? If my arm outputs 100.00 Newton's of force (I made this up), how is it possible that her arm just happens to be capable of the exact same force? If there was any difference in the forces, at any time in the 2 minutes, one of us would have won. Clearly, to me, there is some "friction" in the system. What is your best guess as to how much force she would have to output to either win or lose against my 100.00N arm strength? 90? 99? How close are we in strength here? And finally, where does this friction come from? What is it? |
#2
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Re: Science Q: Arm Wrestling \"Friction\"?
[ QUOTE ]
how is it possible that her arm just happens to be capable of the exact same force? [/ QUOTE ] she isn't necessarily. there are a lot of possible explanations. maybe when one of you starts to "win" a little, the other suddenly has an advantage, allowing him to take back the lead... |
#3
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Re: Science Q: Arm Wrestling \"Friction\"?
youre a pussy,eat some spinach
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Re: Science Q: Arm Wrestling \"Friction\"?
Let me hazard a guess: neither of you were holding on to the table with the other hand to get leverage.
If that is true, then let me also guess that you're of similar masses. If that is true, then you should now be able to figure out why you locked up, even if one of you is a lot stronger. The first guess is that a lot of people consider that cheating, and don't understand why arm wrestling competitions happen on tables with a nice grip to hold on to with your other hand. If I'm wrong about that, then yeah the varying pressures that you were both applying were evening out, despite varying widely. It's also easy to kinda lock your muscles into a position and feel like you're trying to win, but if her hand disappeared yours wouldn't move. |
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Re: Science Q: Arm Wrestling \"Friction\"?
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It's also easy to kinda lock your muscles into a position and feel like you're trying to win, but if her hand disappeared yours wouldn't move. [/ QUOTE ] This looks like an interesting phenomenon. So it's a psychological thing where you both sort of silently agree on maintaining the vertical position? PairTheBoard |
#6
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Re: Science Q: Arm Wrestling \"Friction\"?
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] It's also easy to kinda lock your muscles into a position and feel like you're trying to win, but if her hand disappeared yours wouldn't move. [/ QUOTE ] This looks like an interesting phenomenon. So it's a psychological thing where you both sort of silently agree on maintaining the vertical position? PairTheBoard [/ QUOTE ] Say you're doing curls, and you can't do a certain weight. You get halfway there, and it just stops. You rock a little, and that allows different muscles to take over and you can complete it, but in that other position it's possible that even using a much lighter weight at that point won't get you any farther. I think I might be wrong about the "locking muscles" part of it, and it could have more to do with the muscles in question being near exhaustion and needing to bring others into play. I don't think it would be too tough to test this out. |
#7
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Re: Science Q: Arm Wrestling \"Friction\"?
[ QUOTE ]
youre a spinach,eat some |
#8
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Re: Science Q: Arm Wrestling \"Friction\"?
<font color="blue">If there was any difference in the forces, at any time in the 2 minutes, one of us would have won.
</font> I think your error lies here. I don't think it's true. The force is constantly changing. Maybe you're putting out 100.7 of Newton's force for a split seccond, only to drop back down to 100.05, while she ups it to 100.10 for the next 10th of a second, and so on. |
#9
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Re: Science Q: Arm Wrestling \"Friction\"?
My guess is that your strength is a function of position. Strongest when your arm is back a bit, and slightly weaker when it is far forward. So unless you are stronger over your whole range than she is, you'll naturally find an equilibrium point and sit there until one person gets fatigued.
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#10
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Re: Science Q: Arm Wrestling \"Friction\"?
maybe in arm wrestling, defensive positions have an advantage, which is to say that to move the person past 5 degrees, you need to exert 10% more force than they do for them to stop you.
Just a guess. |
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