Ministry of Silly Walks
Posted on October 16, 2005 Comments (4)
The engineers’ computer simulations conclude that walking is simply most energy efficient for travel at low speeds, and running is best at higher speeds. And, they report, a third walk-run gait is optimal for intermediate speeds, even though humans do not appear to take advantage of it.
The findings help to explain why the possible–but preposterous–gaits in the Monty Python sketch, “Ministry of the Silly Walks,” have never caught on in human locomotion. The researchers add that extensions of this work might improve the design of prosthetic devices and energy-efficient bipedal robots.
You have to like a government news release that references a Monty Python sketch, don’t you? Especially if they realize Monty Python was poking fun at ludicrous government departments (using physical humor). I am glad they choose to add some spice to the scientific news. Learn more about the Ministry of Silly Walks.
4 Responses to “Ministry of Silly Walks”
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April 10th, 2007 @ 8:46 am
“The cat was nicknamed Macavity after the mystery cat in T.S Elliot’s poem. He gets on the bus in front of a row of 1950s semi-deta…”
April 24th, 2008 @ 7:39 pm
Last year, researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, published a study titled “Shod Versus Unshod: The Emergence of Forefoot Pathology in Modern Humans?”
July 14th, 2008 @ 12:06 pm
I think we might have another young engineering on our hands, with the right training
She knows what she wants and isn’t stymied by constraints that would probably blind most of us to the possibilities…
January 3rd, 2012 @ 7:29 am
[...] Ministry of Silly Walks (2005) – I didn’t just include a list of the posts with the most views, I applied some editorial judgement to include some more interesting posts and fun ones (like this one) that are surprisingly popular (even if they are not quite at the top of the list). [...]