Posted on 07/10/2007 6:09:34 PM PDT by DancesWithCats
Almost four decades after John Cleese performed his "silly walks" sketch on Monty Python's Flying Circus, mathematicians have concluded that they are, indeed, silly.
Today, in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical and Physical and Engineering Sciences, an analysis of walking and running concludes that they are the most efficient forms of two-legged locomotion
"Our legs are capable of much more than just walking and running," said Manoj Srinivasan, one of the co-authors. "We prove that for a very simple mathematical model of a biped, walking and running minimise the amount of leg work required per distance at low and high speeds, respectively. Cleese's silly walks are all worse."
The work will be of interest to engineers studying how to make robots move efficiently.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Lowbridge, perfectly illustrated! If I had a robot about the place that walked like that, I’d run screaming from the place!
Poor Cleese. He had to silly walk, but couldn’t get a bite of cheese or a live parrot.
And then, there's the ministry of silly vehicles.
“At last we can all sleep nights” ping.
We need a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqhlQfXUk7w
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