Engineers and Designers Don’t Have the Real Answers

Saturday, March 12, 2011

The Toronto Star runs a follow-up story to the most recent bone-crushing physical assault in ice-hockey.

“While the concussion debate in hockey has largely focused on rules of the game, engineers and designers believe the real answers to life-altering head injuries lies in the laws of physics.”

The engineers quoted here are wrong; totally wrong.

The laws of physics (Energy = ½ mv^2) apply for sure. Travel twice as fast and you have four times the energy; three times as fast nine times the energy. And the laws of physics tell us that energy will be absorbed by the bones, which will then break.

Helmets can absorb some of that energy, reducing the likelihood of bone- and nerve-lacerations, but that’s not the solution to the problem.

To find the solution to the problem we must first identify the problem.

The problem is high-speed (ice-skating, remember?) physical assaults by huge hulking guys ( 6’ 9” and 255 lbs ) and a human body that has not evolved to deal with high speed impacts.

The solution is to do one or more of three things.

(1) Reduce the speed; unlikely to happen; it’s ice skating, remember?

(2) Reduce the mass (or weight, if you prefer); unlikely to happen. It’s a physical sport, remember?

(3) Reduce the incidence of assaults. Ah hah!

Try to imagine, you can do it if you try – the impact (nice choice there, Chris!) of a serious penalty for every body-check.

Suppose that when one player made contact with another player – of either team, then that player and another player from the same team was suspended for 5 full games plus the remainder of the current game.

Sure, there’d be a few grey-area incidents – did they make contact or was the “victim” engaging in a bit of creative drama?

But the obvious contacts, instant off-the-ice and take one of your buddies with you.

Hockey teams would be forced then to draw on their less-able players (assuming that they field the best players to win a match), and that would give the non-assaulting team a slight advantage.

A side-benefit is that slightly less-able players would have an opportunity to showcase their skills.

Just as car-insurance policies, winter-tyres, ABS systems, air bags and seat belts encourage us to push the envelope a little bit more, so we see the same number of collisions, so too will improved helmets (pads etc.) encourage players to push the envelope of aggression, with the inevitable results.

I was watching some Aussie Rules highlights two nights ago. Now THERE’s a rough sport, the more so because it is non-stop action with no protection. Check it out .

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