How To Win A Trampoline War, According To Science
Before Alison Sheets was an assistant professor at Ohio State University, she was a competitive gymnast who knew her way around a trampoline. Over dinner one day, she began explaining the dynamics of trampoline bouncing games to her colleague Manoj Srinivasan, an assistant professor in the mechanical and aerospace engineering department. Srinivasan had never (and still hasn't) been on a trampoline, so he had never heard of a "seat drop war," in which two players alternately bounce on their feet and their butt, vying to be the last player bouncing as they lose energy and it becomes harder and harder to bounce high enough to stand up from the sitting phase. Now, Srinivasan knows a whole lot more about trampoline game theory than most people who have actually been on a trampoline. He, Sheets and one of their colleagues decided to write a paper on the mechanics of the seat drop war,...