No future for silly walks
‘Scientists have explained mathematically why the famous silly walks of Monty Python’s John Cleese have never caught on in the long history of homo sapiens.
The giant, leg-twirling strides of silly walks may enable an individual to leap around swiftly but are simply too expensive in metabolic energy compared with conventional locomotion, according to a paper published by Britain’s Royal Society. [..]
“Inverted pendulum walking is energetically optimal at low speeds and step lengths, and impulsive running is energetically optimal at higher speeds,” they say.
Silly walks gathered cult status in the British television comedy show Monty Python’s Flying Circus, when the gangling Cleese, dressed in a pin-stripe suit and bowler hat, cavorted around as a bureaucrat in the Ministry of Silly Walks. ‘
