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TopazDust · Dec 18, 2008, 10:08 AM

My younger brother is in Grade 11, and has a physics problem he needs help with. As I have never been good with sciences I figured I could get some help here :o... any help is appreciated, but I have no idea about any of this kind of stuff, so explanations in the simplest possible terms would be very helpful :p

Ben Johnson had a time of 9.83 seconds in the men's 100m world championships in Rome, Italy

If he raced in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico city, and ran the same race there, what would his time be?

Rome- 41 N latitude, elevation- sea level
Mexico City- 20 N latitude, elevation-2300 m above sea level

ebaines · Dec 18, 2008, 10:57 AM

Sorry, but this question is impossible to answer with the data you've provided, at last not using any high school physics concepts. I can tell you that at the 1968 Olympics times in the sprint events (400 meters and less) were all new world records (perhaps partly due to reduced wind resistance?), whereas times in the longer distance events were all pretty poor, presuambly because there is 30% less oxygen density in the air than at sea level. I have no idea what the latitude of the location has to do with anything.

spitvenom · Dec 18, 2008, 11:05 AM

Tell him to answer his time would be a DQ because he tested positive for banned substance.

Sports: Positive tests strip runner of Seoul gold

TopazDust · Dec 18, 2008, 11:10 AM

Originally Posted by ebaines

Sorry, but this question is impossible to answer with the data you've provided, at last not using any high school physics concepts.

What information is required?. it may be elsewhere in the handout

ebaines · Dec 18, 2008, 11:17 AM

Originally Posted by TopazDust

what information is required?...it may be elsewhere in the handout

All I can guess is that there may be information about how to model wind resistance acting on a runner, and/or some sort of model rearding how much of a runner's power goes to overcoming wind. Another possibility is that the correct answer is to say this question is impossible to answer. Or maybe they're looking for a funny answer like: Ben Johnson was born in 1961, so he would have been only 7 years old in 1968 and his time would have been much slower.