The Physics of a World Record Pole Vault
You might think that the summer Olympic games are all about getting the greatest athletes together from around the world to see who’s the best. But you would be wrong. In fact, the Olympics are really just a giant data base of physics homework problems. Yup. It’s true.
Let’s see how well the pole vault event works out as a physics problem. In this case, I’m going to look at Mondo Duplantis’ world record pole vault height of 6.25 meters.
If you missed it, here is the vault with Swedish announcers (it’s more fun that way).
OK, now for some physics.
Is Energy Conserved in a Pole Vault?
The pole vaulter starts off running horizontally so that he (or she) will have kinetic energy. How does the value of this kinetic energy compare to the change in gravitational potential energy going to the highest point in the vault?
Let’s start with the work-energy principle. This says that the work done on a system is equal to the change in energy for that system.
The kinds of energy changes depends on your choice of the “system”. If we choose the runner, the pole, and the Earth in the system then it’s possible to have three types of energy changes. Other than kinetic (K) and gravitational potential (U_g), we could…
