Wednesday, May 21, 2008

The Answer Clicked

Today an ancient question was resolved. For as long as we have lived in our neighborhood, we have wanted to know how far one lap around the "loop" is. I always thought it was close to 1/3 of a mile, while some would argue it was 1/4 or 1/2.

Today, my brother had a genius idea. He attached a tube to his bike tire that would make a noise after it struck the frame once per revolution. He was measuring the distance for another area outside our neighborhood. I decided to finally find out the distance our neighborhood is.

I rode around on the sidewalk and got 309 clicks. My sister went around and got 303 clicks. We decided to meet near the middle at 305 clicks. We then went around on the street. I got 266 clicks while my sister got 269.

Formula: clicks(wheel circumference x pi) / (5280 x 12) = distance in miles.

Around the sidewalk came out to .393 miles while the road came out to .344 miles. Basically, a lap around on the sidewalk is 2/5 of a mile while on the street it is around 1/3. It is nice to finally know, and wasn't that hard to answer.

3 comments:

AJ said...

or you could of just drove

just saying

Danny said...

Yes, that had been done. If the loop were larger, that would have been the best way. But with the loop only being fractions of a mile, it is not very accurate to use an odometer.

Danny said...

Oh, and not the best idea for calculating the distance on the sidewalk.