That Stupid Slide

I think I'm a fairly intelligent individual, but there are many things in the world that I simply don't understand.

Nuclear fusion is one example. I don't understand why, 65 years after we got a firm handle on nuclear fission, fusion technology is still so far out of our grasp.

On a slightly different level, I don't understand why major league baseball players slide into first base. Every week or so throughout the season, I'll a replay of some guy charging down the first-base line and then launching himself headfirst toward the bag. It never works, but they do it. It's really stupid, but they do it.

I don't understand why they do it. Don't they know that the rules allow them to run past first base? If they're not tagged and the throw doesn't beat them, they can step on first base and keep running past the base. Once you're safe at first, nobody can run you down with the ball and tag you out.

But here's the real point: Don't they know that they slow down when they slide? They do. Anybody does. When a human is running 90 feet, that human continues to accelerate while on foot.

If you don't believe me, watch a track meet some time (as I write this, the Penn Relays are coming up). Pay attention to the sprints, especially the 100 meters. What you will never see is a sprinter sliding headfirst across the finish line. Why? Because they know that they're going faster while they're running than they would go if they were sliding. And if sliding was faster, there would be sliding pits at the finish line of every track in the world.

That part is much easier to understand than, say, nuclear fusion technology. Somebody has got to have a handle on that one.