Enlarge / Physicist Martin Bier in an aerodynamic tuck, a cycling position that reduces wind resistance. (credit: Martin Bier)

Many avid bicyclists these days have hopped onto the "everesting" bandwagon, in which one rides up and down the same mountain route over and over until the total distance of one's ascents matches the elevation of Mount Everest: 8,848 meters or about 5.5 miles. Recently there has been debate over whether a strong tailwind could help a rider improve their time. But apparently that's not the case, according to a new paper published in the American Journal of Physics by physicist Martin Bier of East Carolina University in North Carolina.

The term "everesting" takes its name from George Mallory, grandson of the legendary 1920s mountaineer George Mallory who participated in the first three British Everest expeditions. Mallory the younger was prepping for his Everest attempt in 1994, and his training included weekend workouts involving bicycling up Mount Donna Buang in Australia many times until he had achieved the elevation of Mount Everest.

Twenty years later, another Australian cycling enthusiast, Andy van Bergen, started organizing worldwide "everesting" events. Participating cyclists would pick a hill near their homes and track each other's progress online. The events became extremely popular in 2020 after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic sparked global lockdowns.

Enlarge / Some cricket bowlers favor keeping the arm horizontal during delivery, the better to trick the batsmen. (credit: Rae Allen/CC BY 2.0)

Although the sport of cricket has been around for centuries in some form, the game strategy continues to evolve in the 21st century. Among the newer strategies employed by "bowlers"—the equivalent of the pitcher in baseball—is delivering the ball with the arm horizontally positioned close to the shoulder line, which has proven remarkably effective in "tricking" batsmen in their perception of the ball's trajectory.

Scientists at Amity University Dubai in the United Arab Emirates were curious about the effectiveness of the approach, so they tested the aerodynamics of cricket balls in wind tunnel experiments. The team concluded that this style of bowling creates a high-speed spinning effect that shifts the ball's trajectory mid-flight—an effect also seen in certain baseball pitches, according to a new paper published in the journal Physics of Fluids.

“The unique and unorthodox bowling styles demonstrated by cricketers have drawn significant attention, particularly emphasizing their proficiency with a new ball in early stages of a match,” said co-author Kizhakkelan Sudhakaran Siddharth, a mechanical engineer at Amity University Dubai. “Their bowling techniques frequently deceive batsmen, rendering these bowlers effective throughout all phases of a match in almost all formats of the game.”