Swimsuit Design Uses Supercomputing

Roland Piquepaille writes "These days, most competitive swimmers wear some type of body suit to reduce high skin-friction drag from water. And makers of swimwear are already busy working on new models for the Olympics 2008. According to Textile & Apparel, Speedo is even using a supercomputer to refine its designs. Its engineers run Fluent Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) program on an SGI Altix system."

Comments

Re:Swimsuit Editions?

[Feyr]

forget the pocket protector. i know a few geekette i'd love to see in a swimsuit! or without for that matter

Re:It would be traditional.

[SanityInAnarchy]

I probably should post this anonymously, but...

There really aren't that many sports that look good nude. Maybe I just don't like "jiggle" as much as everyone else, but really, much better to strip the swimsuit off afterwards.

The only sport that looks good nude is sex. If you don't think sex is a sport, you must've missed college.

Re:Swimsuit Editions?

[innocence18]

Could be promising if it's the same calibre as this.

Olympics should be about the athletes

[KermodeBear]

The Olympics should be about being the best athlete - not who can squeeze out a few fractions of a second because they have better/more expensive swimware. I don't mind using technology for training and conditioning, but in the field (or in this case, the pool) the equipment one has shouldn't be the deciding factor.

Re:Olympics should be about the athletes

[CodeMasterPhilzar]

Hmm, the "equipment" is a factor in many, many events.

• Are you going to standardize all the skates for the speed skaters? Forget custom fitting then?
• Ditto figure skaters.
• How about skis on the downhill, standardizing there wouldn't be popular.
• Snowboarders would revolt at the idea of boarding on the same stuff.
• Bobsledders? Luge?
• Going to make everyone run/jump in the same shoes?
• Vault with the same poles, regardless of weight/height?

These are just a few things off the top of my head. Being an athelete is part natural talent, part learned skill, training, sacrifice and desire/drive. And yes, part of the skill has to be you and/or your coach's ability to find the right equipment for the athelete. Just as an athelete may learn their body responds better to one training routine and/or diet plan over another, they have to learn what choices in equipment work best for them.

Being a former competative swimmer, I would revolt at the idea of everyone wearing the same suits, caps, goggles... Being into weightlifting now, I can see how belts, gloves, straps, to chalk or not etc. is a personal choice. We should let the atheletes make those choices to maximize their performance.

Re:Disgusting.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Why doesn't speedo put it's supercomputer time to some good use, like finding ways to end poverty or help more efficiently after natural disasters like tsunamis, earthquakes, terrorism or volcanic eruptions?"

Unlike what TV and movies have told you, you cannot just type in "How do we end poverty?" into a super computer and just wait for it to respond.

"In a world where the US is still being niggardly over paying slavery reparations, how can anyone find it acceptable to flagrantly waste resources in this way?"

Some company had the money to spend and they spent it. 'Super-computers' aren't some rare Earth resource that can only be used by the elite. (In other words, we're not talking about Univac.) They're built when they're needed by the entities that have the money to pay for them. This is actually a Good Thing TM. Computers get better, prices come down, 'super' computing resources are used for a broader range of applications.

On another note, I vote we end the "couldn't we spend our time curing cancer?" rationale that tends to earn karma around here. No, we cannot use an aeronautics engineer from Boeing to cure cancer. Open Source programmers cannot write drinkable water for third world countries. Ending consumerism in the United States won't feed the world. This planet thrives on diversity. Embrace it.