For all you MATH gurus

['98 BlackBird]

If you are good with math and word problems, you should love this one.
I am trying to figure out how much of a distance I lost by. I was bracket racing Saturday and lost by .0002 sec. What does this equal to in distance??? Here is the break down

11.72 ____Dial in____ 15.06
.1058_______RT_______ .0698
11.7340____1/4 ______ 15.1102
118.30____1/4 mph____ 88.86
.0140 ____off dial___ .0502
WINNER
.0002 <<<<< Finish Margin

I am thinking a few inches at the finish line.
Thanks

[shenanigans]

Man...

that sucks... I am not even sure where to start calculating on that but I can say this...


If you just bounced in your car down the track, you would have won. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

rough f-body rule of thumb... 1/10th = carlength.

You are talking such minimilist a distance, I'd say there is a 50% chance you won because teh equipment isn't calibrated to that kind of accuracy. [img]smile.gif[/img]

bet that was an exciting race though [img]smile.gif[/img]

[TheGreenPunisher]

Its something in the neighborhood of a 1/4 or 1/2 inch.

[LD]

well what I got for what its worth...
at 118.30 mph
he would be covering .416416 inches in .0002 seconds
at 88.86 mph
you would be covering .3127872 inches in .0002 seconds
not sure if my figures are right, but thats what I did

explanation:
118.3 mph convert to miles per second
multiply mps by .0002
then multiply by 5,280 feet in a mile, then by 12 inches in a foot to get distance traveled
did that for both
not sure if thats the right way...
but what it looks like is you lost by less than half an inch
sweet

[95Batmobile]

I got numbers slightly higher than LD because I used a different method.

Miles Per Hour converts to Feet Per Second by multiplying by 1.5

So 118.30x1.5 = 177.45

x 12 = 2129.4 for inches per second

x .0002 = .42588 inches traveled in .0002 seconds.

By this same method, you were traveling .319896 for every .00002 seconds.

So you lost by about 1/3 of an inch. It took you .0002 seconds to cross the finish line after he crossed, so we use your rate to find the distance behind, not his.

[LD]

Originally posted by 95Batmobile:

Miles Per Hour converts to Feet Per Second by multiplying by 1.5

how does this work?
must be a rough calculation I assume?
this is prob where our numbers got different, but you basically did the same thing
but I got 173.506666666... fps
118.3/60 min
ans/60 sec
ans * 5,280 feet in a mile

[RicE-ter]

i think this problem cannot be solved accurately enough for 2 reasons

1) at a track you have pre stage and stage lights and the your time begins once your wheels pass the stage laser. that is why sometimes the person with the slower time wins because its about who crosses the finish first, but since it was that close i dont think that matters

2) you have an initial velocity and the final velocity, you can only find average velocity and average distance covered a sec. but the velocity is not linear due to acceleration. shaped like haf a parabola. also instentanious acceleration at ne point is unkown so you dont know how much someone pulled mid way

but if its as small as 1/1000th of a sec, just call it a inch or so

[LD]

Originally posted by RicE-ter:
i think this problem cannot be solved accurately enough for 2 reasons

1) at a track you have pre stage and stage lights and the your time begins once your wheels pass the stage laser. that is why sometimes the person with the slower time wins because its about who crosses the finish first, but since it was that close i dont think that matters

2) you have an initial velocity and the final velocity, you can only find average velocity and average distance covered a sec. but the velocity is not linear due to acceleration. shaped like haf a parabola. also instentanious acceleration at ne point is unkown so you dont know how much someone pulled mid way

but if its as small as 1/1000th of a sec, just call it a inch or so

1 is a given
2 the acceleration involved in .0002 of a second would hardly weigh the values that much, we were discussing the end result, not the average along the way

[95Batmobile]

Originally posted by RicE-ter:
i think this problem cannot be solved accurately enough for 2 reasons

1) at a track you have pre stage and stage lights and the your time begins once your wheels pass the stage laser. that is why sometimes the person with the slower time wins because its about who crosses the finish first, but since it was that close i dont think that matters

2) you have an initial velocity and the final velocity, you can only find average velocity and average distance covered a sec. but the velocity is not linear due to acceleration. shaped like haf a parabola. also instentanious acceleration at ne point is unkown so you dont know how much someone pulled mid way

but if its as small as 1/1000th of a sec, just call it a inch or so

YEah uhm, acceleration is not shaped like half a parabola.

And LD is right, in .0002 seconds there will not be enough of a change in speed to change out numbers.

And yeah, 1.5 is a rough estimate of mph to feet/sec

[RicE-ter]

i know i sed velocity is, due to acceleration

just sayin its not gunna be all that accurate with whats given, then again i dont know how precise ne of us need to be. ne way im not one to fuss over 1 or 2 thousandth of a sec, wwheter it be 1/4 or a 1/3 of an inch

yah i see that now, reading my own post its like, duh. but yah if the time difference is so small i think we can just imagine how small that would be ne way

[ June 28, 2005, 02:38 AM: Message edited by: RicE-ter ]

[TheGreenPunisher]

I called it....somewhere between a 1/4 and 1/2 of an inch.

Boo-yah

And im right also...

[1998silverbird]

Winning is winning.. It doesnt matter if its by a inch or a mile.. :D :D

['98 BlackBird]

seeing some other calculations, on other boards, I have come to the conclusion that I lost by .0002 sec or approx 1/3 of an inch.

Damn that was too close.
But I do appreciate everyones help on this.

[4thgenowner]

:eek: