Physicists have demonstrated that Parrondo's paradox—an apparent paradox in which two losing strategies combine to make a winning strategy—can emerge as a coin game with a single coin in the quantum realm, but only when ...
(Phys.org)—Physicists have experimentally demonstrated an optical system based on an unconventional class of quantum mechanical systems that could lead to the development of new quantum optical devices. The system is called ...
A team of researchers at the University of Tokyo has found that large numbers of pedestrians meeting in crosswalks tend to follow the Lévy walk process. In their paper published in Journal of the Royal Society Interface, ...
(Phys.org)—Decision making in an enormous range of tasks involves the accumulation of evidence in support of different hypotheses. One of the enduring models of evidence accumulation is the Markov random walk (MRW) theory, ...
(Phys.org) —A small team of mathematicians with Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Spain, has come up with a way to study a network's resistance to failure. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of ...
(Phys.org) —Researchers designing adult bipedal robots have faced a challenge in limitations in a robot's walking pattern. They seek ways to improve on designs to have robots move more naturally. Improving the walking function ...
A group of US researchers has produced a robotic set of legs which they believe is the first to fully model walking in a biologically accurate manner.
Engineering
Jul 5, 2012
16
0
(PhysOrg.com) -- Japan's entertaining robot that sings and looks like a beautiful young female is finally learning how to walk just like a beautiful girl—well, almost. Robotics developers at the National Institute of ...
Humans, other great apes and bears are among the few animals that step first on the heel when walking, and then roll onto the ball of the foot and toes. Now, a University of Utah study shows the advantage: Compared with heel-first ...
Other
Feb 12, 2010
4
2
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists in the Multisensory Perception and Action Group at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, led by Jan Souman and Marc Ernst, have now presented the first empirical ...
Other
Aug 20, 2009
12
3
Walking (also called ambulation) is the main form of animal locomotion on land, distinguished from running and crawling. When carried out in shallow waters, it is usually described as wading and when performed over a steeply rising object or an obstacle it becomes scrambling or climbing. The word walk is descended from the Old English wealcan "to roll".
Walking is generally distinguished from running in that only one foot at a time leaves contact with the ground; for humans and other bipeds, running begins when both feet are off the ground with each step. (This distinction has the status of a formal requirement in competitive walking events, resulting in disqualification at the Olympic level.) For horses and other quadrupedal species, the running gaits may be numerous, and while walking keep three feet at a time on the ground.
The average human child achieves independent walking ability around 11 months old.
While not strictly bipedal, several primarily bipedal human gaits (where the long bones of the arms support at most a small fraction of the body's weight) are generally regarded as variants of walking. These include:
For humans, walking is the main form of transportation without a vehicle or riding animal. An average walking speed is about 5 to 6 km/h (3 to 4 mph), although this depends heavily on factors such as height, weight, age, terrain, surface, load, culture, and fitness. A pedestrian is a person who is walking on a road, sidewalk or path.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
