Imponderables: Fun and Games (7 page)

H
ere’s the problem. Skaters, even elegant flyweights like Michelle Kwan, leave gouges that get dirty and lead to uneven residue on the ice. The more skaters there are on the ice, the more defects appear.

Our hero, of course, is Frank Zamboni, an Italian immigrant, who invented the Zamboni Ice Resurfacer to solve a problem of his own. He owned a rink, the Icehouse in Paramount, California, and realized how much time and labor was wasted with his maintenance men manually hosing and sweeping the ice—a process that took three to five men an average of an hour and a half. During hockey games, six to eight employees were required to scrape the ice between periods.

In 1942, the uneducated but mechanically gifted Zamboni took a Jeep and fashioned a riding resurfacer that could automate the process. After seven years of experimentation, he crafted an early version of the Zamboni Ice Resurfacer and used it at his rink. In 1950, the most famous ice skater in the world, Sonja Henie, who won gold medals at the 1928, 1932, and 1936 Olympics, saw Zamboni’s machine and wanted one for her tour. Zamboni hand-built it and Henie showed it off on her tour—rink managers clamored for the labor-saving device, and Zamboni found himself with a new business.

The genius of the Zamboni resurfacer is that the entire operation is handled with one pass over the ice, even though four separate operations are performed:

The poser of this Imponderable wonders why this “clean water” spread to form the topmost sheet of ice needs to be hot. Wouldn’t hot water just melt some of the ice on the surface and slow down the freezing process?

The conventional wisdom is that, compared to room temperature water, hot water creates a better bond with the existing ice. It does melt the existing ice a little more, but it fills in the cracks better. When it freezes, hot water creates a smoother temperature gradient from the top of the old ice to the top of the new surface—it “integrates” better and forms a smooth top-sheet of ice.

We spoke to Raoul Lopez, the maintenance chief at the Culver City Ice Arena in Culver City, California. His ice arena uses an Olympia resurfacer, one of Zamboni’s main rivals. Lopez showed us a manual from Olympia that addresses this issue:

We spoke to a few physicists, who confirmed that hot water would have slight advantages in resurfacing ice, but they wondered whether the small gain would really be worth the cost in heating? If scientists fielding a theoretical question wonder about costs, you can rest assured that the thought has crossed the mind of rink owners. In active rinks, resurfacing is performed every hour or two, so the cost of heating 100 gallons of water an hour is not inconsiderable.

And guess what? None other than Richard Zamboni, now president of his father’s firm, says about his ice rink:

Despite the Olympia maintenance manual, the experienced chief of maintenance, Raoul Lopez, agrees with Zamboni. His rink doesn’t use hot water except for special occasions. Although he thinks that hot water smoothes the ice out better than room temperature, hot water is just too expensive to justify the small advantages. But we contacted several NHL clubs and high-level figure-skating officials, and they confirmed that hot water rules the day in their domains.

Submitted by Michael Rzechula of Elizabethtown, Illinois.

T
his area is known as the fungo circle. Coaches stand in the fungo circle during pregame practice and hit balls to infielders and, more frequently, outfielders.

Why confine the coach to stand in one small area? So he won’t wear out the grass on the field!

Submitted by Terrell K. Holmes of New York, New York.
Thanks also to Ronald C. Semone of Washington, D.C.

T
his is not the kind of question movie studios want to answer on the record. About the only reason anyone could come up with to answer this Imponderable is the obvious one—they express the release date in Roman numerals in order to make it more difficult for viewers to determine exactly how old the show is. It is hard enough to spot the release date printed in Arabic numbers during a fast credit crawl.

Although studio representatives were not unwilling to so speculate off the record, none of them knew this “deception theory” to be a fact. It may be just as likely that copyright dates are in Roman numerals simply because they’ve always been that way: Never discount inertia as an explanation for
any phenome
non.

There are many new avenues for international distribution of movies and television shows, notably cable television, home video, and videodisc. With each new “window” of distribution, some time elapses. A hit movie might show up on cable television six months after its theatrical release, and then on videotape and videodisc a year later. But non-hit movies can have a more erratic distribution time frame—B-movies like horror movies or kung-fu flicks might not even hit theaters, let alone home video, until many years after they are shot. And the movie may not be released in foreign markets until even later. There are more reasons than ever for concealing the true release date of movies (writers have long made it a policy not to put dates on screenplays they send out for consideration—the older the date, the staler the script somehow seems to the reader).

Ironically, though, more and more Arabic numbers are popping up on release dates, particularly in television. ABC- and NBC-produced shows now use Arabic numbers, and some movie studios use Arabic numbers, although the policy is inconsistent. W. Drew Kastner, a lawyer for NBC, indicated that the network has no reason to make it difficult for viewers to know exactly when a show was taped or filmed.

Is there any practical reason for the copyright date in the first place? Although ideas cannot be copyrighted, the expression of such ideas is protected. By inserting the copyright date, movies are automatically protected by the Universal Copyright Convention, which means that if there is a copyright date listed, it will be protected internationally, without the need for costly legal paperwork in each locality the film is exhibited. Under the old copyright law in the United States, the term of the copyright was 28 years from the date of publication. But under the current law, effective January 1, 1978, the copyright extends to the life of the author plus 50 years, or 100 years after creation, or 75 years after publication, whichever is less. With the advent of home video, the copyright on a film is more valuable than ever. It isn’t important, or even desirable, for you to be able to read the copyright date while watching the movie. But it is important that would-be plagiarists know where they stand.

U
nlike the slalom skier’s poles, which must make cuts in the snow to negotiate the gates, the main purpose of the downhill ski poles is to get the skier moving, into a tuck position…and then not get in the way.

According to Tim Ross, director of Coaches’ Education for the United States Ski Coaches Association, the bends allow the racer “to get in the most aerodynamic position possible. This is extremely important at the higher speeds of downhill.” Savings of hundredths of a second are serious business for competitive downhill skiers, even when they are attaining speeds of 60–75 miles per hour.

If the bends in the pole are not symmetrical, they are designed with careful consideration. Dave Hamilton, of the Professional Ski Instructors of America, reports that top-level ski racers have poles individually designed to fit their dimensions. Recreational skiers are now starting to bend their poles out of shape. According to Ross, the custom-made downhill ski poles may have as many as three to four different bend angles.

Funny. We haven’t seen downhill skiers with three to four different bend angles in their bodies.

Submitted by Roy Welland of New York, New York.

N
ot only do girls (and later, women) tend not to be able to throw balls as far as boys, but their form is noticeably different. If you ask the average boy to throw a baseball as far as he can, he will lift his elbow and wind his arm far back. A girl will tend to keep her elbow static and push forward with her hand in a motion not unlike that of a shot putter.

Why the difference? Our correspondent mentions that he has heard theories that females have an extra bone that prevents them from throwing “like a boy.” Or is it that they are missing one bone?

We talked to some physiologists (who assured us that boys and girls have all the same relevant bones) and to some specialists in exercise physiology who have studied the underperformance of girls in throwing.

In their textbook,
Training for Sport and Activity: The Physiological Basis of the Conditioning Process
, Jack H. Wilmore and David L. Costill cite quite a few studies that indicate that up until the ages of ten to twelve, boys and girls have remarkably similar scores in motor skills and athletic ability. In almost every test, boys barely beat the girls. But at the onset of puberty, the male becomes much stronger, possesses greater muscular and cardiovascular endurance, and outperforms girls in virtually all motor skills.

In only one athletic test do the boys far exceed the girls before and after puberty: the softball throw. From the ages of five to sixteen, the average boy can throw a softball about twice as far as a girl.

Wilmore and Costill cite a fascinating study that attempted to explain this phenomenon. Two hundred males and females from ages three to twenty threw softballs for science. The result: males beat females two to one when throwing with their dominant hand, but females threw almost as far as males with their nondominant hand. Up until the ages of ten to twelve, girls threw just as far with their nondominant hand as boys did.

The conclusion of Wilmore and Costill is inescapable:

All the evidence suggests that girls can be taught, or learn through experience, how to throw “like a boy.” Exercise physiologist Ralph Wickstrom believes most children go through several developmental stages of throwing. Boys simply continue growing in sophistication, while girls are not encouraged to throw softballs or baseballs and stop in the learning curve. As an example, Wickstrom notes that most right-handed girls throw with their right foot forward. Simply shifting their left foot forward would increase their throwing distance.

When forced to throw with their nondominant hand, most boys throw “like a girl.” The loss in distance is accountable not only to lesser muscular development in the nondominant side, but to a breakdown in form caused by a lack of practice.

Submitted by Tony Alessandrini of Brooklyn, New York.