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Old Sun Jan 18, 2009, 07:50am
JugglingReferee JugglingReferee is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nevadaref View Post
"When an official blows the whistle, the belt pack recognizes the frequency of the FOX 40 whistle and sends a radio signal to the base station receiver that is connected to the scoreboard controller, stopping the clock at the speed of light."

Wouldn't that mean that the clock gets stopped at the speed of sound?
No. But the clock is not stopped at the speed of light, either. The belt device can't do it's thing until it receives a signal, a signal which travels at the speed of sound from the whistle to the device. From there, a radio frequency signal stops the clock. That signal travels much faster than the speed of sound.

Edit: the radio frequency signal to stop the clock doesn't work at c, because by definition c is measured in a vacuum. Since we have the atmosphere to contend with, the speed at which the belt device stops the clock is < c.
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Last edited by JugglingReferee; Sun Jan 18, 2009 at 07:56am.
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