Okay, so the other day I was thinking about how we measure speed and distance, and it got me wondering about something specific. I was driving, going pretty fast, and I saw a sign that said I was 46 feet from something. Then it hit me: how fast does 80 mph actually feel when you’re that close to something?
I started by doing what anyone would do – I looked it up online. Turns out, there’s a lot out there about how to calculate speed, distance, and time, but not so much about how speed feels at different distances. I found these calculators that can tell you how long it will take to get somewhere at a certain speed, or how fast you need to run to win a race. They’re cool and all, but they didn’t really answer my question.
I dug a little deeper. I found out the formulas for speed, distance, and time. You know, the basics: Speed = Distance / Time, Distance = Speed Time, and Time = Distance / Speed. I even found a calculator that lets you plug in numbers and get the results with two decimal places. But still, it wasn’t quite what I was looking for. I wanted to know how that speed feels, not just the numbers.
Then I started messing around with the numbers myself. For example, how far can you travel in 2 hours and 30 minutes going 55 mph? That’s a simple one: Distance = Speed Time, so 55 mph 2.5 hours. I did a few of these calculations, just playing around to get a better sense of how these things relate to each other.
Finally, I stumbled upon an interesting idea. Someone mentioned that a 60 mph pitch from 46 feet might feel more like a 70 mph pitch from the standard 60 feet. That was the closest thing I found to what I was looking for. It made me think, okay, so the closer you are, the faster it feels, even if the actual speed is the same.
My Conclusion
- Realization: The closer you are to an object, the faster a given speed feels.
- Action Taken: Looked up information online about calculating speed, distance, and time.
- Action Taken: Found and used basic formulas: Speed = Distance / Time, Distance = Speed Time, Time = Distance / Speed.
- Action Taken: Experimented with different calculations to understand the relationship between speed, distance, and time.
- Discovery: Found a comparison that a 60 mph pitch from 46 feet feels like a 70 mph pitch from 60 feet.
So, in the end, I didn’t find a direct answer to how fast 80 mph feels from 46 feet, but I got a much better understanding of how speed and distance work together and how our perception of speed changes based on how close we are to something. It was a fun little experiment, and it definitely made me think more about the everyday things we experience, like driving or even watching sports.
