If there was ever a question as to whether the digital age affects writing styles and content, the reporting from the London Olympics should provide the answer.
We are so accustomed to viewing the results of technological advances that we think nothing about the absurdity of what it is we are looking at. For example, the time clocks at the swimming venues.
To record the winner of an event, the swimmer touches an electronic pad on the wall of their lane, which halts an elapsed-time clock for that participant. While competitors may appear – to the naked eye – to have touched at the same moment, the time clock is clear on the separation of the touches. The clock is much like that used at the end of NBA games, which seem to last forever as they wind down, since the digital display shows thousands of a second.
Thousands of a second. 1/1000th of a single second.
With that in mind, here is the AP account of young Missy Franklin’s finish in the 200m backstroke.
Teenager Missy Franklin won her third gold medal here by setting a world record in the 200-meter backstroke, her time of 2:04.06 blasting past the previous record by three-quarters of a second.
Notice how she conquered the old record: she did it by “Blasting past.” What a blast it was, too. 3/4ths of 1/60th of a single minute.
Three quarters of a second. A blink of an eye.
According to statistician William A. Briggs, “a real blink of an eye takes 300 to 400 milliseconds. Since there’s 1000 milliseconds in each second, a blink of an eye takes around 1/3 of a second.”
Based on that figure, Miss Franklin’s margin of victory was 750 milliseconds, or – by Mr Briggs’ calculation – two blinks of an eye.
That’s not so fast, after all.