(no subject)
Apr. 11th, 2005 08:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogI'll write about the weekend later, but for now...
Having not had any significant amount over the last two years, I think the caffiene I drank to stay awake on the drive last night did odd things to my brain. I got really focused on calculating time and velocity. I'm reminded of having read something indicating that caffiene works on the same receptors in the brain that ADD medication does; maybe that's why I got so focused. Or maybe I was just tired. Anyway...
I spent over an hour flipping equations around in my mind trying to figure out how many seconds it takes to cover one mile at eighty miles per hour (the speed I was driving). Through the better part of the long I-94 stretch through Michigan, I had quiet classic rock on the radio station that I wasn't listening to while I tried to figure out a correct speed/distance equation. It was odd; I could look at the figures in my head and just know what the answer is; or at least I thought so, but I couldn't make them make sense with the math I was doing so now I'm not sure. I couldn't seem to turn my instinctual knowledge into a valid equation. Maybe I was just tired. I worked out a table of results for the equation I did manage to come up with, but the result was not only odd and nonlinear, but it just seemed wrong. I guess I'm just not that good at doing math in my head. That's what The Dwarf is for.
Here's what I came up with:
Equation:
let t = time (in seconds)
let v = velocity (in miles per hour)
t=(v/60)60
Thus 60 MPH 60/(60/60) = 60 seconds (1 minute per mile)
and 120 MPH 60/(120/60) = 30 seconds (1/2 minute per mile)
That math seems to make sense. So:
60 MPH = 60 seconds per mile.
80 MPH = 45 seconds per mile.
90 MPH = 40 seconds per mile.
120 MPH = 30 seconds per mile.
That just doesn't make instinctive sense to me. 90 is halfway between 60 and 120. Instinctively, I feel that that should result in a halfway between answer, i.e. 45 seconds? My math doesn't seem to support that though. I tried to calculate a table for answers at every 5 MPH increment, but I couldn't hold that much data in my head and trying to draw a graph mentally was just not working. Maybe I'll play with it at lunch.
Having not had any significant amount over the last two years, I think the caffiene I drank to stay awake on the drive last night did odd things to my brain. I got really focused on calculating time and velocity. I'm reminded of having read something indicating that caffiene works on the same receptors in the brain that ADD medication does; maybe that's why I got so focused. Or maybe I was just tired. Anyway...
I spent over an hour flipping equations around in my mind trying to figure out how many seconds it takes to cover one mile at eighty miles per hour (the speed I was driving). Through the better part of the long I-94 stretch through Michigan, I had quiet classic rock on the radio station that I wasn't listening to while I tried to figure out a correct speed/distance equation. It was odd; I could look at the figures in my head and just know what the answer is; or at least I thought so, but I couldn't make them make sense with the math I was doing so now I'm not sure. I couldn't seem to turn my instinctual knowledge into a valid equation. Maybe I was just tired. I worked out a table of results for the equation I did manage to come up with, but the result was not only odd and nonlinear, but it just seemed wrong. I guess I'm just not that good at doing math in my head. That's what The Dwarf is for.
Here's what I came up with:
Equation:
let t = time (in seconds)
let v = velocity (in miles per hour)
t=(v/60)60
Thus 60 MPH 60/(60/60) = 60 seconds (1 minute per mile)
and 120 MPH 60/(120/60) = 30 seconds (1/2 minute per mile)
That math seems to make sense. So:
60 MPH = 60 seconds per mile.
80 MPH = 45 seconds per mile.
90 MPH = 40 seconds per mile.
120 MPH = 30 seconds per mile.
That just doesn't make instinctive sense to me. 90 is halfway between 60 and 120. Instinctively, I feel that that should result in a halfway between answer, i.e. 45 seconds? My math doesn't seem to support that though. I tried to calculate a table for answers at every 5 MPH increment, but I couldn't hold that much data in my head and trying to draw a graph mentally was just not working. Maybe I'll play with it at lunch.
