4 ms·

You got me thinking about what other factors could affect the result at various degrees of precision. By my math [1], the time it takes for the sound of the sta

You got me thinking about what other factors could affect the result at various degrees of precision. By my math [1], the time it takes for the sound of the starting buzzer to reach the ears of swimmers at opposite ends of the pool could actually affect the outcome measured in hundredths of a second. But it's an order of magnitude smaller effect than the lane lengths varying by 3cm. Of course, they could remedy this (and for all I know, maybe they do!) by having one starting buzzer speaker placed at the same distance behind each swimmer. [1] Each lane is 2.13m wide, so the swimmers in lanes #1 and #8 are 14.91m apart. If the buzzer were placed right next to swimmer 1, it would take ~0.044s longer to reach swimmer 8's ear (using 340.29 m/s as the speed of sound). Or if it were right in the middle between swimmers 4 & 5, it would reach swimmers 4 & 5 ~0.019s before it reached 1 & 8.

chroma 10y ago
For both swimming and track events, each starting block has a speaker to broadcast the gun sound. In the 2012 Olympics, the starting gun was replaced with a fully electronic device.[1] 1. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/the-speed-of-sound-is-too-slow-for-olympic-athletes/260413/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/the-sp...
- throwaway287391 10y ago
  Ah, cool, thanks for filling me in on that. The fact that the organizers indeed go to that length/expense to remove the ~0.02s advantage a swimmer would otherwise have due to the speed of sound makes it even stranger to me that they'd accept a 3cm difference between lanes, which seems to have an order of magnitude larger effect in long races (per OP's calculations). I'd also wonder if there isn't some advantage/disadvantage to being one of the two swimmers on either end (#1 or #8) versus any of the others (#2-7) which each have two swimmers on either side of them. I have no idea which way the effect would go, but it would seem to me that there must be some effect at the level of hundredths or thousandths of seconds. Edit: seems there's indeed an advantage to being in the inner lanes, and they account for it by seeding [1]. (This was probably well known to anyone who pays any attention to or knows anything about competitive swimming at all. :) [1] https://www.quora.com/In-competitive-swimming-why-are-the-inner-lanes-3-4-and-5-usually-the-fastest-Do-better-swimmers-qualify-to-get-them-Is-there-an-advantage-And-if-so-how-is-that-fair https://www.quora.com/In-competitive-swimming-why-are-the-in...
rafaelm 10y ago
I found this related Physics StackExchange commend in the articles: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/99318/is-it-fair-to-judge-this-speedskating-race-by-only-3-thousands-of-a-second http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/99318/is-it-fair-...
christoph 10y ago
They do, although for some reason I can't find anything more official than http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/olympic-timing2.htm http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/olympic-timing2.htm

chroma 10y ago

For both swimming and track events, each starting block has a speaker to broadcast the gun sound. In the 2012 Olympics, the starting gun was replaced with a fully electronic device.[1] 1. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/the-speed-of-sound-is-too-slow-for-olympic-athletes/260413/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/the-sp...

throwaway287391 10y ago
Ah, cool, thanks for filling me in on that. The fact that the organizers indeed go to that length/expense to remove the ~0.02s advantage a swimmer would otherwise have due to the speed of sound makes it even stranger to me that they'd accept a 3cm difference between lanes, which seems to have an order of magnitude larger effect in long races (per OP's calculations). I'd also wonder if there isn't some advantage/disadvantage to being one of the two swimmers on either end (#1 or #8) versus any of the others (#2-7) which each have two swimmers on either side of them. I have no idea which way the effect would go, but it would seem to me that there must be some effect at the level of hundredths or thousandths of seconds. Edit: seems there's indeed an advantage to being in the inner lanes, and they account for it by seeding [1]. (This was probably well known to anyone who pays any attention to or knows anything about competitive swimming at all. :) [1] https://www.quora.com/In-competitive-swimming-why-are-the-inner-lanes-3-4-and-5-usually-the-fastest-Do-better-swimmers-qualify-to-get-them-Is-there-an-advantage-And-if-so-how-is-that-fair https://www.quora.com/In-competitive-swimming-why-are-the-in...

rafaelm 10y ago

I found this related Physics StackExchange commend in the articles: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/99318/is-it-fair-to-judge-this-speedskating-race-by-only-3-thousands-of-a-second http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/99318/is-it-fair-...

christoph 10y ago

They do, although for some reason I can't find anything more official than http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/olympic-timing2.htm http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/olympic-timing2.htm