The rowing gold medal won by Matthew Pinsent and co. was won by 8/100ths of a second.

Just for the record, a crew rowing at 10 miles per hour (it might have been just a bit quicker at the finish) would be rowing at 1/6 mile a minute - 293 yards and a foot, or 880 feet - and therefore 14 feet 8 inches, or 176 inches, per second.

The winning time of 8/100ths of a second would therefore give a distance of 176 inches x 8/100, i.e. 14.08 inches.

Reminds you of the Oxford -v- Cambridge boat race, doesn't it? - won by a foot

Tony
Like SteveH, my telly & radio have developed a curious fault. I can only see Scottish gold medal winners on local TV & radio reports. Can you tell me what distance this rowing race was contested over?

Tony,

I don't know where you got your figure. I understand that the winning time was 6min 6.98sec (or roughly 367s). This means that their average speed was 2000/367 m/s which comes out to 5.45m/s (which is more than the 14ft 8in that you quoted). Following on the arguement, the winning margin was 0.43m - again a little more than the 14in that you quoted.

I think that the above shows the stupidity of converting everything back to Imeprial units.

The rowing gold medal won by Matthew Pinsent and co. was won by 8/100ths of a second.

TB:
Reminds you of the Oxford -v- Cambridge boat race, doesn't it? - won by a foot

metre:
Never mind that your maths is wrong as Martin points out, it still gives you such a warm feeling having it done. If you are out to prove your mental rigidity, you and every other converter succeeds admirably.

<<I think that the above shows the stupidity of converting everything back to Imeprial units.>>

Mortal sin, eh? talking units that people understand.

BTW - radio one were talking about that gold medal won by those girls in the boat (can't remember the name of the event).

The news-girl commented that the boat is 20ft long by 5ft wide.

(adopts the metre/eric style...)

Abject misery kids-radio selfish parents harsh reality type thing.

Erm

Obsolete imperialists.

<<I think that the above shows the stupidity of converting everything back to Imeprial units.>>

Mortal sin, eh? talking units that people understand.

BTW - radio one were talking about that gold medal won by those girls in the boat (can't remember the name of the event).

The news-girl commented that the boat is 20ft long by 5ft wide.

(adopts the metre/eric style...)

Abject misery kids-radio selfish parents harsh reality type thing.

Erm

Obsolete imperialists.

Yes, I used a guesstimate for the speed of the rowers. The actual winning margin was 17.2", now that I have full details of the time they taken.

The event was run over 2,000 metres, or 1 mile and 427 yards to the nearest yard (nearly 1 1/4 miles).

The speed was therefore 12.19mph, slightly above my original estimate. Based on the assumption that their speed at the finish was the same as throughout the rest of the race, the winning margin was 17.2". Their speed may be expressed as 214.56 inches per second or just over 17ft. 10 1/2in. per second.

Incidentally, the metric system is inferior to Imperial when it comes to working out speeds per minute and per second - basically because, well, minutes and seconds are *non-metric*.

1 mile an hour is *exactly* 88 feet per minute, or 17.6" per second (easily referable to 1760 yards in a mile).

So 10 miles an hour is 176 inches per second, 12 m.p.h. is 211.2 inches per second, etc.

However, in metric, 10 km/h is 2 7/9 (25/9) metres per second, and therefore an awkward 2.77777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777 etc. m/sec.

Similalrly, 20km/h is 5 5/9 (50/9) metres per second, i.e. 5.55555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555 etc. m/sec.

1km/h is 0.2777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777 m/sec. (2/9 metre)

In other words, not an exact number of metres - or centimetres or millimetres etc.

TB:
Incidentally, the metric system is inferior to Imperial when it comes to working out speeds per minute and per second - basically because, well, minutes and seconds are *non-metric*.

metre:
Yeah, speaking with many people everybody lamented that fact that we always come up with ugly figures after our daily sprints. Some even suggested that that imperial advantage is important enough to re-introduce the obsolete system. Amen

Tony, don't bother with spurious accuracy, leave that to the metricksters.
2000 metres is 10 furlongs, i.e. nearly 1-1/4 miles.

'bout time they redefined their metre as 1/200 of a furlong and did us all a favour. ONe more redefinition won't harm anybody!

I listened to a boat thing in Athens and the commentators was gettng very excited with his feet and inches describing the lead, and in the end, as it was so close, he said they won by 2 centimetres. LOL. How could he tell? Anyway, I forgave him as GB won!
S.Cruple

Bring back the line, I say (or my idea for a 1/24in unit- the petine): "He won by 10 lines" or "a matter of lines" sounds good)

Tony posted
"The event was run over 2,000 metres, or 1 mile and 427 yards to the nearest yard (nearly 1 1/4 miles)."

S Cruple posted
"Tony, don't bother with spurious accuracy, leave that to the metricksters."

Who was leading after 1 mile & 427 yards? Did anyone measure? When a race is as close as that one was, the only important line is the finishing line. It was 2000 metres from the start line. Tony's conversion is not particularly accurate by the standards that I understand the organisers insist upon.

Would S Cruple have commented had the commentator stated "He won by half an inch" - a bit less less than the quoted 2 cm?

Why do the olympics have such large numbers of metres? 2000 m run, 10,000 m canoeing? What happened to the kilometre?

When viewed in isolation, 10,000m might be better represented as 10km. When viewed in the context of all the other distances (100m, 200m, 400m, 500m, 1000m etc) it is quite permissible to use 10,000m. The beauty of the metric system is that you can switch between 10,000m and 10km instantly. (Somethign that you cannot do with the Imperial system)

"Permissable" eh?

Which authority can we thank?