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Joined: Jan 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
One of the "engines" episodes mentioned means ancient Greeks made starting of foor races fair. The "aphetes" = starter, operated a "hyslex" = starting gate" which was a clever device which used same mechanism as a catapult to whip the starting rope barrier out of the way of the runners, who had to have both feet in a shallow gutter called "balbis". But the site says there was a manhole for the starter. I couldn't figure out why that was necessary. Can you? http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~cls180/week3/menu3.html
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Joined: Aug 2000
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
I purely guessing, Bill, but I hypothesise one of two reasons:-
1) He needed his eyes to be down at ground level so that he could see for certain that no one was stepping over the line before the start:
2) The catapult mechanism was so vicious that he needed to be in a protected place, so that it didn't do him irreparable damage.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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