COLD HARD SCIENCE.The Physics of Skating on Ice (With SlowMo) - Smarter Every Day 110

Figure skate, Hockey skate, and blade diagram Graphics by Kelly Richard.
Clap skate, Plantar Flexion, and outro logo by Emily Weddle.

I shot the skaters with a Phantom MIRO LC320S made by Vision Research:
Most speeds were around 1750 fps, but I shot the Hocket skid at closer to 3500 fps.

Music made by Gordon McGladdery, "A Shell In the Pit".
Gordon's work is awesome, you should check it out.

Robert Farrell answered my Facebook appeal for Photographers/Videographers in the Milwaukee Wisconsin area and filmed the skaters at the Pettit National ice Center for me.

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With thanks to:

JR Ginex-Orinion - he helped me by putting the equation in LaTex and giving me a file. This saved me a lot of time and I'm grateful.

Kevin Butler at the Pettit National Ice Center in Wisconsin was helpful in coordinating the filming of the speed skaters.

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If you want to learn this in detail stop what you're doing and read the three pages around "Equation 5" in this book. I was particularly interested in the "warm ice" vs "cold ice" issues.

This is also a great article about why ice is slippery:

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Things I use and like:

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Instead of saving for my kids' college, I make videos using the money I would have saved.
The thought is it will help educate the world as a whole, and one day generate enough revenue to pay for their education. Until then if you appreciate what you've learned in this video and the effort that went in to it, please SHARE THE VIDEO!

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Warm Regards,

Destin

[sci]

Shows what an insanely complex piece of work our brains are. The fact that a person can do these things without even knowing it just blows my mind.

[alasdairduncan]

I love how much credit he gives to the people he talks to. Scientists, Farmers, Sportspeople who have all worked incredibly hard to do well really deserve that kind of credit!

[captainimperialism]

When Destin mentioned the physics going on in the players’ brains, he wasn’t saying that they were consciously doing math equations in their head, rather that their brain can subconsciously calculate the exact angle, velocity, speed, etc of all the maneuvers fast enough to keep up with the game.
I think his point was that, while they may not consciously understand the math, their brain can calculate everything just fine, showing how powerful the human brain is.

[literalantifaterrorist]

As a hockey player myself, I have to say that we do not conciously think about the balance when stopping. We do, however, semi-conciously calculate the stopping point and angle of the skates so that we get the perfect stop.

[flijk]

5:28 as a hockey player, im not implying we are dumb but we dont think of all the math it takes and all that, we just lean back a few inches behind and we are good

[christianpeters]

“Hockey players we geniuses”
*gets shot at while trying to conduct an interview*

[russell]

Every Canadian watching this is thinking "whoa, you are really overthinking this".

[holymolythejabroni]

You bring up an interesting point regarding the “background” processing of a hockey player’s brain.

Wayne Gretzky was not the biggest, strongest, or fastest player in hockey. Far from it. But he had an uncanny ability to predict where a play was going. He was almost prescient in that regard. It’s also why he was such a prolific playmaker, even long into the twilight of his career. He could make passes through loads of traffic because of whatever background geometry/physics processing going on in his brain.

Hockey is pretty unique among the major sports because of Gretzky. Typically the best players possess some ungodly physicality. Look no further than someone like Lebron James. But Gretzky was a reedy, average sized kid who absolutely dominated the game because he quite literally out-thought his opponents.

[zilchbupkis]

I always like when destin is asking questions and destin manages to make them smile and you can just tell they really needed that laugh that’s so awesome

[verdatum]

The editing on this video is just brilliant. He does picture-in-picture to provide commentary during a slo-mo shot and dynamically adjusts the size and position of the commentary frame to stay near the action without getting in the way. This allows engagement with the audience while presenting the visual information of the high-speed footage in a way that is so organic that it means that only film geeks are likely to notice it.

[SpecificLove]

Another great video. I had no clue about the curvature of the blades. Thank you for enlightening us.

[itrest]

3:43 the machine looks so cute lawl it has tounge nose n eyes

[ClubPenguinBand]

I don't know why but this video is insanely interesting to me. I've watched it like 4 times in the past few days

[UPlayNetwork]

Very educational video, i feel smarter everyday watching these, thanks

[DSturch]

I love that sharpness diagram! I use it all of the time and I never knew you guys made it! Also, goalies tend to sharpen their skates to have more bite because we have to be technical in our movements in order to position ourselves to stop the puck. The skaters tend to have less bite because, well, they skate more. It helps them skate faster and they don't need to grip the ice as much as goalies do.

[murdocha]

As a Canadian, it always makes me smile when people talk about "ice skating". At least to those of us who grew up here, there are skates and roller skates. 

[mariashutter]

Seriously, the host is incredibly charismatic and inviting. He should have his own show (outside of YouTube).

[Ms.Anonymous]

I love how when he's with experts he's able to say "I don't understand" and let them explain further
No one is an expert in everything and it's fine to not get concepts right off the bat
Even someone as smart as Destin learns new things everyday :))

[BenightedStar]

Sports physics is so fascinating! Please do this for more sports!! Volleyball would be awesome to breakdown.

[isitbowseason]

We aren’t smart it’s all Muscle memory