25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE WAVE

I think that this is last thing to be gleaned from the cyber backwaters (aka: my inbox). I have finally waded through the murky depths and retrieved everything I thought was worthwhile (worthwhile is very subjective). Anyway........................the popular notion here in the NW is that the wave was created in Seattle at the Kingdome................shows you how urban legends can become ingrained into the community psyche......................PEACE....................Scott

25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE WAVE

DAVID POLLAK, MERCURY NEWS, CA, OCT 15 - Today, the wave turns 25. And
forgive the man widely recognized as its creator if he doesn't take the
scientific analysis and heated arguments too seriously. "It's just a fun
little thing,' said George Henderson, the 62-year-old professional
cheerleader known as Krazy George, whose roots go back to San Jose
State. "And I'm glad I invented it." . . .

Henderson's renown as the wave's inventor is pegged to its appearance at
the Oakland Coliseum during an A's-Yankees playoff game on Oct. 15,
1981. His standing has been disputed in some circles -- the University
of Washington, for example, contends the wave first appeared at a
Huskies-Stanford homecoming game two weeks later -- but Henderson is
adamant and cites video footage to back it up.

If anything, Henderson said this week, he created the wave a few years
earlier, at an NHL game in Denver while working for the Colorado
Rockies, the franchise at the time. . . Television helped turn the wave
into a global phenomenon, starting in August 1984 when, according to an
entry on Wikipedia, a crowd of 83,642 at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto
did the wave during an Olympic soccer match between Brazil and Italy.
Two years later, Mexico City crowds were so into it during the World Cup
that it became known in Europe as the Mexican wave.

The largest? According to that same entry, more than 110,000 people at
the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and at University of Michigan football
games, where students vary things by sending the wave around
counter-clockwise or in slow motion or doubling its speed before
splitting it into two counter-rotational waves.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/hockey/nhl/
san_jose_sharks/15763750.htm


CNN, 2000 - Tamas Vicsek of the University of Hungary, along with
colleagues, analyzed videos of 14 waves at large Mexican soccer
stadiums. Using mathematical models initially developed to study the
spread of forest fires and the propagation of electrical impulses in
heart tissue, Vicsek's team claims to have scientifically figured out
the dynamics of the wave.

Their analysis indicates that it takes only a few dozen fans leaping to
their feet with their arms up to trigger a wave. Once started, it
usually rolls in a clockwise direction at a rate of about 40 feet per
second, or about 20 seats per second. They say at any given time, it is
about 15 seats wide. And they say their conclusions apply to the wave
across the board -- not only to Mexican fans, or to soccer matches. . .
Their research is published in the British journal Nature.

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/09/11/offbeat.wave.explained/

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