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Monday, August 18, 2008

Phelps' Win: Faster than a Blink!
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Photo Credit: Sports Illustrated / Getty Images

Did you catch Michael Phelps extraordinary win in the Men's 100m Butterfly finals at the Beijing Olympics? Were you able to watch it live? Did you actually see him win?

I doubt it. Nobody saw him win. Only the cameras saw Michael Phelps win!

Phelps took the gold by outreaching Serb swimmer Milorad Cavic and winning by one-hundredth of a second.
Gold: 50.58 seconds
Silver: 50.59 seconds

According to Swimming USA experts, one-hundredth of a second is the smallest margin that the touch-sensitive pool panels can record. Thankfully nobody had to rely on a hand-held stopwatch. More thankfully, nobody had to rely on a human's eyesight to judge the finish.

That's because human vision cannot discern what happens in 10 milliseconds (the same as one-hundredth of a second).

The eye blinks in 50 milliseconds and we are completely unaware that it has happened. An auto airbag fully deploys in 50 milliseconds and passengers never see it happening. Both of these events took five times as long as Phelps' winning margin.

It was exciting to watch the ultra-slow motion replay of Phelps' victory. Funny, the more often I watched it his winning margin appeared to increase - to at least 20 milliseconds!

A great win for Phelps, a great victory for Team USA, and a great achievement for today's digital technology. Everybody wins, except poor Milorad!

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Posted by: Dr. Lloyd at 4:21 PM

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