Letter: Why three minutes would be the ultimate mile
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Sir: Remembering well Roger Bannister's running of the first four-minute mile, I was interested in the opinions in Mike Rowbottom's article ('Day that turned out fine for Bannister', 5 May) on the ultimate record mile time.
In 1970 at the Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories, Ontario, Canada, while considering bonding orbitals of transition metals, an admittedly bizarre bit of lateral thinking (I was an active club athlete) led me to discover that, for any one individual, the rate of anaerobic running (the inverse of speed) declines linearly with the logarithm of the total distance run, and that the coefficient of that decline (I called it the 'fatigue coefficient') could be used to predict the optimum distance to be run by any athlete.
This was published in the science journal Nature (Vol 228 pp 184-185, Oct 10, 1970) with a colleague, Dr Kit Coleman, and concluded with the prediction that the ultimate mile record would be three minutes exactly (and the ultimate marathon would be run in one hour 37 minutes 30 secs]). We further speculated that the ultimate mile would be run by 2070.
By the by, in reference to another matter currently in your columns, in my present incarnation I rarely preach for long but never as short as three minutes, or even four. How short, I wonder, have readers heard sermons preached? Less time than that needed to 'run a mile' from the preacher?
Yours faithfully,
W. M. RUMBALL
All Saints South Wingfield
and Christ Church Wessington
South Wingfield, Derbyshire
6 May
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments