Clock, horn, or light?

[Bart Tyson]

If the clock shows 0:00.0, but the light has not yet illuminated, it means there is anywhere between .01 to .09 of a second remaining. The Texas/Providence game was the prime example of this situation. Hence, the clarification. [/B]

I could be wrong, But, its my understanding the situation at this game should not have happened. They fixed the problem after this game. And many other schools also checked to make sure the light comes on when there are all 0's on the clock. They do not want a repeat of this situation again.

[Nevadaref]

Originally posted by rockyroad

Don't know if Tony has anything written on it, but i do, and he is correct...we got it in one of the conference call memos the supervisors send out earlier this year...

Great! This is exactly what I was looking for. Could you post this or provide a link to it, if it is on the web somewhere, say at ncaa.org?

[rulesmaven]

Someone posted above that the fact that there was time left in the game when the clock showed "0.00" was a problem that ultimately was fixed. It is not a problem. It's unavoidable. To the extent there was a problem, they have minimized it by going to tenths of a second, but there is no "solution" beyond that.

Although a physicist may differ, time does not pass in neat increments like seconds or tenths of a second. It passes continuously. For obvious reasons, in sports and other things, we want tangible representations of how much time is passing. But whatever increment you pick will not be perfect. Whatever time is showing on a clock is always going to be inaccurate, except for an instant of time so small that it approaches infinitely small.

When they start the clock at the beginning of a half, it immediately ticks down from 20:00 to 19:59 in an instant, even though a full second has not truly elapsed from the game. So, you just need to understand what the time that is displayed on the clock means. "19:59" means some amount of time exactly equal to or greater than 19:59, but less than 20:00.

So, where is that missing second? It's there, but you just can't see it. When the "true" time in the game gets to an instant less than 19:59, the clock will switch to "19:58," even though there is as much as 19:58.9999999(etc.) left in the game.

Nine tenths of a second are made up when the clock switches from 1:00 to 59.9. Watch this sometime, and you can see 9/10 of that "missing" second elapse right before your eyes, without a corresponding change in the display. When the clock switches from "1:01" to "1:00," it lingers on "1.00" for nearly a second. But how can that be, since the next thing you see on the display is "59.9." There is only one tenth of second between 1:00 and 59.9, yet it takes nearly a full second for this tickdown to occur. That's because you're seeing 9/10ths of the previously missing second that was "saved up" from the 20:00 to 19:59 tickdown. But, at this point, the same principle applies to the display on the clock, except the missing increment is a tenth of a second, not a second, so "51.5" means that there truly is anywhere from exactly 51.5 seconds to 51.5999999(etc.) seconds left in the game. (This is theoretical -- the clock display does not really change at the speed of light, so it's probably closer to 51.58, but you get the point.)

So that's why "0.00" can mean there is still time left in the game. It's not a "problem," because the only "solution" would be for the display to show MORE time left in the game than is truly in the game. (In other words, for the clock to wait to switch until the instant that the time switched to is accurate.) But that would be a nightmare. Would you want the clock to show ".01" when there really is ".00000001" left?

[Mark Dexter]

Originally posted by rulesmaven

When they start the clock at the beginning of a half, it immediately ticks down from 20:00 to 19:59 in an instant, even though a full second has not truly elapsed from the game.

Not necessarily - some clocks actually wait a second before switching over.

Of course, the only way to really know which way the clock runs is to be running it yourself - it's hard to tell from watching a game exactly when the timer pushes the "start clock" button.