AnalyticCycling.com Powered by webMathematica
July 10, 2001--AnalyticCycling.com is a
recreational web site powered by Wolfram Research's new webMathematica
engine. Technically oriented cyclists often make "back of the envelope"
estimates of cycling performance. Now, AnalyticCycling.com offers web-based
calculators that take a no-compromise, textbook approach to computing
cycling performance. The site writes the equations of motion, expresses them as
differential equations, and uses the power of Mathematica to give numeric
solutions that can be plotted or evaluated to find the parameters of interest.
Tom Compton, an avid cyclist and long-time Mathematica user, is the
author of AnalyticCycling.com. He provides the site mostly as a "labor of love" for
people with an interest in cycling, but his audience includes users from
more than 50 countries around the world. Recreational riders find it
interesting to estimate the power their favorite racer needs to climb a
hill at race pace. Triathletes use it to pick wheels for a particular time
trial. Manufacturers quote it in their product literature.
The site has already been used to answer critical questions such as "Should
I use my time-trial bike or my road bike at the Sydney Olympic games?"
The course was expected to be windy with lots of turns, and the rider had
wind-tunnel data for each bike. Says Compton, "We used the 'Wind on Rider'
calculator at AnalyticCycling.com to model the course in three dimensions
and the drag on the rider, bike, and wheels as a function of wind direction
and speed. Integrating over the course gave a quantitative estimate for
each bike. The rider rode the time-trial bike as recommended and ended up on
the podium."
The technology being employed here is newly developed by Wolfram Research
and will soon be available to the public as webMathematica, allowing
access to the world's leading technical computing software from any web browser
or web-enabled device. Built around Java Servlet, a proven server technology,
webMathematica is fully compatible with state-of-the-art dynamic web
systems and is the fastest, easiest, and most dependable method for providing
custom-designed computations on the web.
Adds Compton, "One can handle many types of web calculations with JavaScript,
applets, CGI programs, PHP, etc. However, none of these are adequate
when one needs differential equations. webMathematica provides
these capabilities. In particular, webMathematica has demonstrated that it is a rich,
robust interface from the web to Mathematica and Java."
For more information on using webMathematica to enhance your
web-based projects, visit the webMathematica product pages or
send email to webmathematica@wolfram.com.
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