Humans and hoops, well, more modern humans and their hula hoops. Well, what to do with all this hoopla of hugely hairbrained humans hooping?[TE1]  It seems preposterous that any human person would partake in such a pointless partition of time. However, it seems such decisions have been done and deep rooted for centuries, especially by the most unsophisticated and stupid beings in the universe. Since the dawn of what we sophisticated world-builders know of the human civilization, hoops seem to have been around. They’ve served many purposes, from religion, to playthings, to exercises for unreasonably skilled humans in biology and physics to spend their time on (Lamb). It probably has a grand scheme of taking over Earth, with a secret hoop society. But who really knows, because even though we aren’t as much of unsophisticated barbarians as humans, we should be able to know. Anyways, the role of hoops today in the humans of today’s half-witted society is one of entertainment and exercise. The hoop has been a highlight of human civilization for forever, which speaks clearly about the “civilization” they run.

For thousands of years, humans have been hula-hooping. If some have not been hula-hooping they most definitely have been using hoops to hoopla for happiness. Even since ancient times, even as long back as when we built the pyramids for them, they have been playing with hoops (Lamb). Yes, really, the stupids of the universe figured out how to make a hoop. You know how religion shaped human society? Hoops have been around longer. Something the humans can’t seem to let go of even has symbolism of hoops. Halos in Christianity, and even the cultures of the REAL old world, what the humans call North America have symbolism of the hoop. They say it represents fertility and the circle of life (Lamb). The people of the world couldn’t even agree on how to play with the hoops. The Egyptians would decorate them, and the Romans and Greeks would roll them (Lamb). Even the most stupid of the stupid humans, the British, had their own hoop game. They called it “Kill the hoop” They would roll it and try to throw a spear. (Lamb). But, the British only got stupider, and they started to roll the hoops around their arms, waist, and even head, while still trying to “kill the hoop”. It was dangerous. The few non-extremely stupid Brits tried to stop it, trying to rename the game to “hoops kill”. Records show that an unreasonably high amount of people died by “kill the hoop” (Lamb). Around the same time, the Mississippi people of Mississippi played a similar game (Lamb). Why can’t British people just come up with an original idea?

By the 1800’s in Europe and America, hoops held a different role in society. A French (not as bad as British) painter named Jean-Léon Gérôme put hoops in paintings to make them more modern (Lamb). The humans know hoops today as exercise is partially because of a Swiss (okay) trainer. His practice, that he called “Eurithmycs” was to music and was a way to train dancers (Lamb). But why don’t humans today call hula-hooping Eurithmycs? Colonialism! Explorers of the pacific found the natives doing a hula dance, and they thought it looked like how hula hooping did. Hula did not involve hoops (Lamb). After a bit, hula hooping lost its popularity. But in the ’58, everything changed. The founders of Wham-o-Toy, Richard Knerr and Arthur “Spud” Melin sold colorful plastic hula hoops. They were extremely cheap to produce, and at a buck and 98 nothings, they sold like hot cakes. In just two months, they sold twenty-five million of them. That’s 25,000,000 (Lamb). What have they been up to next? They remade the frizbee. Some humans are smart (Lamb). That brings us to today, or the human 21st century. It’s still a popular toy, but it’s not quite twenty-five million in two months big. Even though it’s still mainly used for recreation, there are also heavier, larger circumference hula hoops for fitness. However, in modern times, it’s a performance art. Some Native Americans perform rituals, and there are also other performing arts like fire dancing and circus dancing (Lamb). The humans have not progressed whatsoever since ancient times.

Humans have been making hoops since ancient times. They have been historically made of wood, bamboo, and similar materials, but the humans’ modern process of making hula hoops is very simple. There are only a few raw materials that go into making it, and manufacturers can vary their size and color, appealing to a wide range of humans (“Hula Hoops”) The raw materials that go into making a hula hoop, as they are commonly called in modern days, are pre-colored plastic, staples to hold the tube together, and sometimes noisemakers or lights in the hollow tube (“Hula Hoops”). Factories receive high-density polyethylene (HDPE) in the form of tiny pellets (“Hula Hoops”). These are pre-colored thermoplastics that the manufacturer throws into a hopper, then into what’s called an extrusion machine. This barrel-shaped machine uses friction to heat up and melt the plastic (“Hula Hoops”). Once the plastic is melted, adjustments to color are made. The extruder also shapes the plastic into a tube of a desired thickness and are cut to the length of the circumference of the finished hula hoop (“Hula Hoops”). These tubes of plastic are transported to a benching machine, where they are fed manually. The benching machine bends the tubes, and then, the tube is stapled shut (“Hula Hoops”) The process for making hula hoops are just as simple as humans’ brains.[TE2] 

The massively inferior humans have made a science of figuring out how their brains and biology contributes to how they control their body and space around them. The humans are so infatuated with this science and hula hooping that some unreasonably smart people from the University of Tokyo made an unreasonably long study called “Achievement of Hula Hooping by Robots Through Deriving Principle Structure Towards Flexible Spinal Motion” into a breakthrough on replicating hula-hooping in robots (“Achievement”).[TE3]  But what about the humans? They were able to get robots to hula hoop (more or less) but how do they do it? Well, even though just about every human would probably be able to hula hoop, some use their hips, ankles, or knees more than other people (Lamb). Even though the combination of how the body spins the hoop is not always the same, the forces actually on the hoop is the same for everyone. And that brings us the physics of hula hooping.

Well, if a human were to hold a hoop up to their waist, the hoop would just fall. The hips, knees, and ankles create a parallel oscillation, keeping the unstable ring up (Lamb). The human doing the hula hooping is the axis. You could think of the hula hoop as rolling on the human, and the human is the one using energy to keep the hoop rolling on it (Lamb). The force the human creates on the hoop is called torque. The centripetal force from the person being inside the hoop is what keeps it from flying across the human room (Lamb). The force the human needs to keep the hoop depends on the weight and circumference of the hoop.[TE4]  Speaking of circumference, there’s math involved in hula hoops!

As superior beings, we all love math, and it comes to us extremely easily. But just in case you forgot, a cycloid is “(T)he curve generated by a point of the circumference of a circle that rolls along a straight line... The points of the curve that touch the straight line are separated along the line of 2πr, which is the circumference of the circle” (“Cycloid”). There are other types of cycloids, such as the epicycloid, where the curve is generated, “(O)f a circle rolled along the outside the circumference of another circle...” (Cycloid). There are also hypocycloids, where a circle rolls along the inside of the circumference of another circle (Weisstein). The ratio between the circumferences of the circles changes the number of times there is a point on the line (Weisstein). The size of the rolling circle to the other circle matters. It is smaller than the stationary circle, and the ratio affects how many times the point touches the inside of the other circle (Weisstein). Got that? The ratios are 1/2=2 points touching the circumference of the other circle, 1/3 is 3 points, and so on (Weisstein). Hypocycloids are what are formed when someone uses a hula hoop. The more points the hypocycloid forms, that is, the bigger the difference in the ratio between the person and the hoop, the greater energy the person needs to keep the hula hoop from falling. This is why fitness hula hoops are usually larger than recreational hula hoops (Lamb). In the end, small hula hoops are for human wimps.

            To conclude, we can confirm that hula hoops are the most important object for human’s daily life. In fact, we interviewed the smartest and coolest human out there, Andrew Neydelman. He confirmed to us that hula hoops are the biggest factor in his life. Without hula hoops, he says, “Life would suck.” Even though humans may be considered stupid for not letting go of those stupid circles, Earthlings have been able to make a thing that lasted millennia, that was a toy, religious symbol, and exercise. In the end, hula hoops are the shape of human culture.

Works Cited

“Achievement of Hula Hooping by Robots Through Deriving Principle Structure Toward Flexible Spinal Motion.” Fujipress.com, Achievement of Hula Hooping by Robots Through Deriving Principle Structure Towards Flexible Spinal Motion (fujipress.jp). Accessed 14 January 2020.

"Cycloid." britannica.com, Cycloid mathematics. Accessed 6 January 2020.

Lamb, Robert. "How Hula Hoops Work." Howstuffworks.com, 25 July 2011. How Hula Hoops Work | HowStuffWorks. Accessed 6 January 2020.

"Hula Hoop." Madehow.com, How Producs are Made, madehow.com/Volume-6/Hula-Hoop.html#:~:text=The%20only%20materials%20in%20most,like%20insert%20forming%20the%20joint. Accessed 28 January 2020.

Weisstien, Eric W. "Epicycloid." Mathworld.wolfram.com, Wolfram Mathworld, Epicycloid -- from Wolfram MathWorld. Accessed 14 January 2020.