Two Thousandths of a Second

Seb Vettel snagged pole today by a margin of a mere two milliseconds over Farrari’s Fernando Alonso.  That was exciting, wasn’t it?  Through the magic of Wikipedia, here are some comparisons that will help us grasp the smallness of two milliseconds. I don’t know about you, but I always find these sorts of things helpful.

Two milliseconds is

• the time it takes a sound wave to travel 68 cm;
• 1 millisecond shorter than the time it takes a housefly’s wing to flap;
• 3 milliseconds shorter than the time it takes a honey bee’s wing to flap;
• 6 milliseconds shorter than the fastest shifting time of a car’s mechanical transmission;
• 132 milliseconds shorter than the time it takes light to travel around the Earth’s equator;
• at least 298 milliseconds shorter than the time it takes for the human eye to blink.

So, yeah—I think it’s safe to say Red Bull is wise not to be feeling complacent right now.  Ferrari is like a storm threatening on the horizon—a very fast, very cranky and humorless storm.  Run, Red Bulls!  Run quickly!  Win!