The Math of Wrestling.

Its that time of year, when the local school hosts a huge wresting tournament with wrestlers from 10 different schools bringing middle high school athletes totally something like 140 competitors. 

It may not seem very large but every one of those students had to fly in via a small plane that holds no more than 9 passengers. 

I will spend 12 to 15 hours running the score board for one of the mats.  I have to keep track of the time, blood time, watch the ref for each and every signal, mark it down, and know who's up next.

There are things like a one point reversal, two or three points for near falls,  points for holding and not listening, and enough more to keep one on their toes.  The first year I did it, I had just wrote down what the ref did and wrote the number of fingers he held up but know, I know better.


I found this article which actually looks at a professional wrestler who made claims about his chances to win a three way competition back in 2008.  It is one of those things that is good for checking out for what is wrong with the statistics used.  Just to tease you, Scott Steiner claimed he had a 141 2/3% of winning against someone else's 8 1/3%.  Right off you know the claims are going to be interesting.

This lecture by Professor John D. Barrows explores how strength and power effects certain sports such as wrestling and gymnastics.  He covers gravity, mass, weight, Newton's laws, and your location on the earth in regard to your performance, along with levers and leverage which is especially applicable to wrestling. 

The Professor actually discusses the three types of levers and which ones are best applied in wrestling.  He discusses each class of lever in detail before discussing its application in wrestling.  Quite interesting.

The final article is on the mathematical connections to wrestling.  The author discusses a wrestler minimizing impact upon hitting the ground and the mathematical formula for pressure, the formula for momentum gained as the person falls, the "choose function" for drafting into teams, modeling the popularity of a wrestler based on various systems such as that of predictors.

Find your students who know every wrestler in the WWF and introduce them to the math via these three articles and see what interest you can generate.

Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.