Michael Phelps won the 100 meter butterfly, Phelps swam 100 meters in 50.58 seconds. the 2nd place swimmer swam the 1oo meters in 50.59 seconds. Phelps beat him by 1/100th of a second. Calculate, in inches, the distance Phelps beat Cavic by
To calculate the distance that Michael Phelps beat Cavic by, we'll need to convert the time differential (1/100th of a second) into a distance.
First, we need to understand the speed at which Phelps swam. Since he swam 100 meters in 50.58 seconds, we can find his speed by dividing the distance by the time:
Speed = Distance / Time
So, in this case, the speed of Phelps is 100 meters / 50.58 seconds = 1.97399 meters per second (rounded to five decimal places).
Next, we'll use this speed to find the distance covered in 1/100th of a second:
Distance = Speed × Time
The time we'll use is 1/100th of a second, which is equivalent to 0.01 seconds.
Distance = 1.97399 meters/second × 0.01 seconds = 0.0197399 meters
Finally, let's convert this distance of 0.0197399 meters into inches.
Since 1 meter is equal to 39.37 inches, we can calculate the distance as follows:
Distance in inches = 0.0197399 meters × 39.37 inches/meter = 0.7758851 inches.
Therefore, Michael Phelps beat Cavic by approximately 0.7759 inches.