The pressure encountered by top athletes

The shocking news that gymnast Simone Biles has withdrawn from her events at the Olympics due to mental health issues, following Naomi Osaka’s withdrawal from two Grand Slam tennis tournaments for the same reason, has turned a massive spotlight on the pressure that these top athletes are under. Biles was seen as the marquee athlete of this Olympics, like Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps in previous games, and expected to win accordingly. Those of us who have never come close to being in such stratospheric levels of athletic achievement may find it hard to appreciate the pressure these people are under, expected to perform at their peak under the close scrutiny of large numbers of people. The cameras are on them all the time, even when they are just stretching or chatting to people.
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Meet the Guardians

The Cleveland baseball team has finally announced the new team name, replacing the Indians with the name Guardians. While I was glad that the old offensive name was gone, I was underwhelmed by the new one, seeing it as somewhat unimaginative. I imagined that it was chosen because the new name rhymed with the old one and thus looked similar when written in cursive script as the new logo

But Steven Litt writes that the name has a deeper meaning and is very appropriate.
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The bathroom bills that we actually need

Conservative state legislatures around the country have been trying to pass bills that will prevent access to bathrooms based on gender identity, specifically restricting access for trans women. This is hateful, aimed at a tiny minority that is already discriminated against in so many ways. But on my travels over the weekend, I thought of a bathroom bill that would benefit everyone and passing it would be a much better use of everyone’s time.

There used to be a time when I could drive for long distances without having to stop to use the bathroom. I recall on one occasion driving non-stop from Cleveland to Philadelphia, a journey that took about seven hours, without stopping for anything at all. But I was younger then. Those days are long gone and on my trip to Los Angeles and San Diego I found myself having to stop to use the facilities several times.
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Break from blogging

I will be going this weekend to Los Angeles and San Diego to visit old friends. It will be my first road trip since the pandemic shut downs began in March of 2020 and in addition to the pleasure that seeing old friends always provides, it will also be nice to get out on the open road and drive down the western coast. As a result, blogging will be light to non-existent.

I expect to resume on Tuesday.

Tie breakers in sports

I am not a football fan but follow the game in a casual manner and so learned that Italy beat England in the European Cup yesterday. The score was 1-1 at the end of regulation time.

I did not watch the game and my opinion on it would be worthless anyway but what I want to discuss is the way that the game was decided, by means of a penalty shootout that Italy won 3-2. Whether a goal is scored or not depends a lot on whether the goal keeper manages to guess correctly the intentions of the penalty kicker as to where in the goal the ball is being targeted.

While I understand the need to find a way to quickly end a game when the scores are tied, this seems to me to be a particularly bad method. Given the difficulty of scoring goals which makes ties likely, this form of the tiebreaker has been used in many high-profile games, even deciding Olympic gold medals.
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Tour de France crash

Crashes and pileups at the Tour de France are not that rare. This is not surprising since we have riders going at high speeds while bunched close together and weaving in and out and even the most skillful riders can occasionally make a wrong move that causes a crash. Last year the Tour de France was held with fewer spectators lining the streets because of covid-19 restrictions. This year the crowds were back in full force but the presence of one particular fan caused a massive pile up of riders.

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How do words acquire meaning?

Philosopher Stephen Law examines how words get their meanings. He says that when I say “It is hot today”, it is at one level just a process by which sounds are articulated. A parrot saying the same thing is also just a process. But the difference is that when I say it, I am conveying meaning in a way that a parrot is not. From whence does this meaning arise? Law says that Ludwig Wittgenstein took a different view of this question than John Locke (1632-1704)
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Why are professional athletes forced to speak after matches?

It is common after sporting events to have the press interview various players after each match. I had assumed that participating was voluntary but that professional athletes would welcome the chance to increase their profile by doing so. But apparently, at least in professional tennis, they are forced to subject themselves to post-game interviews and this odd aspect has come into sharp focus in the case of tennis player Naomi Osaka.
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Mnemonics

In the comments to the post about the cartoon with the cosine pun, many people recalled the mnemonics that they were taught to remember how sine, cosine, and tangent were defined. In the comments, Rob Grigjanis mentioned the mnemonic he learned for the color spectrum as “Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain” and that reminded me of this story that I have written about earlier that happened when my older daughter was in third grade.

She came home from school one day and told me excitedly how the teacher had explained how white light was made up of different colors. The teacher had also told her that the great scientist who discovered this was Roy G. Biv! To say I was surprised is putting it mildly. I tried to gently correct her about who the scientist was without seeming to disparage her teacher, but my daughter was skeptical about what I was telling her. Who was she more likely to believe: her teacher, a fount of authoritative knowledge, or her dopey old father, often prone to making jokes? She was too young to appreciate the implausibility argument that it was highly improbable that the scientist who discovered the color spectrum just happened to have a name that matched the initial letters of the colors in the right order.
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