If it is humanly impossible to get a reation time of .1 of a second, does it mean that there is a delay between what one sees and what actually happens. So, lets say, if a pencil falls and hits the table surface, a person who sees that will "see" that incident .1 or more seconds later? Or is reation time based on how the brain tells the body to move (like a hand or leg) due to an incident (like a sound of a starting gun?) I'm a bit confused

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Snail racing: (500 posts per line)
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I'm pretty sure that your mind will pick up things a lot faster than .1 of a second. The .1 of a second is how long it would take for you to process then make something move in response.

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

As far as I understand, reaction time is the time it takes for your brain to interpert the signal. Your sight is pretty much instant, but you don't always know what you're seeing or hearing. The actual signals within your body are pretty damn fast since they travel electrically along neurons and chemically between them. It's the realisation of what you're seeing/hearing/feeling that takes a while to happen.

Then again, if it's a genuine reflex, the response is fast because there is no interpertation, only a fast pre-programmed reaction that is sent out from your spinal cord (i.e. quickly pulling your hand away from a hot stove you placed it on).

Yes. I see.

I once knew a person who had a reation time of 6 seconds (along with other mental disablities.) If you asked for his name, 6 seconds later he tells. You could play baseball or any game with him. I wonder how his world "works."

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Snail racing: (500 posts per line)
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[This message has been edited by Echoman (edited February 05, 2004).]

Most likely in the same way as two people playing JK using 56k's

(no offence meant)

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################### Life is like a
###OOO#######OOO### network of roads
##O#O#O##O##O#O#O## you keep on running
###OOO##OOO##OOO### till you hit a
########OOO######## dead end!
##OOO##OOOOO##OOO##
###OOO#######OOO### Why live to suffer
####OOOOOOOOOOO#### when to live doesn't
#####OOOOOOOOO##### mean to suffer?
###################

Well, I didn't know the person much to understand how he sees the world. I could assume either his world is delayed 6 seconds or his mental state can't function under 6 sec. I would never really know, but I know he, later in his life, got his reation time to 4 seconds. (which probably took alot of work if you think about it.)

(and your sig is big Berlick. O_o)

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Snail racing: (500 posts per line)
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First, there's a delay between any event and when an observer sees it relative to their distance from the event, this delay is figured by taking the speed of light in an atmosphere (approx. 0.98c) and the distance between the event and the observer. Then you have to add the time between when the image of the event reaches the eyes of the observer and when the image is finished being processed in the brain.

The entire process combined together is what makes up your "net" reaction time to any event.

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"At last, we have come to find the truth to our souls. Though, the truth is not what we expected. I now fear my own soul."

You can see things very quickly. They have done experiments with flashing words on a screen so fast that you really can't tell anything was there and then asking the viewers what came to mind. The results showed that the people could actually recognize the words very quickly. They did the experiments again flashing the words for about a quarter of a second and the people's response time was greatly decreased.

A good bar game and a way to make some money is to have someone make their thumb and index finger into a C shape, and then hold a $20 bill with the bottom edge in between the finger and thumb. Tell them that you will give them the bill if they can catch it if you let it go, and that they have to give you some cash if they can't. You have a really good chance of keeping your money and the people's reaction time will be even worse if they have been in the bar for a while.
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"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right." -Isaac Asimov

[This message has been edited by Bobbert006 (edited February 05, 2004).]