trends S trendsetters

Programming performance

"If they perform to their optimum potential," says Dr. Gideon Ariel, "America's Mac Wilkins, Terry Albritton and Dwight Stones will win gold medals this month in Montreal." Such a prediction would be considered little more than conjecture, if Dr. Ariel were not himself a former Olympian from Israel, and a pioneer in the rapidly developing field of biomechanical analysis. Six months ago, neither Wilkins nor Albritton were considered serious contenders. However, on the eve of the Montreal Olympics, they are favored to win the discus and shotput events, respectively.

Dr. Ariel's conclusions are the result of simulating the performance of these and other perspective Olympians on a specialized computer to determine what each of them could do if their timing, stride, delivery, and overall body motion were perfected. "The athletes corrected their performance flaws accordingly," says Dr. Ariel, "and within a month, world records began to fall."

The possibilities for using computers to perfect body motion are endless, says Dr. Ariel. He has already found that most people walk incorrectly, that most shoes will cause lower back pain because they are not constructed with the human foot in mind. He has also determined, as others of us have often claimed, that the tennis ball is made all wrong. His variety (recently put on the market by Spalding) provides the player far better control because it rests on the racquet strings some 20 percent longer.

Have you heard about the four-way Ford, or

eating ruffage, or perfecting performance

by computers? People are talking about them.

FLIGHTIME July 1976