I ran track in high school. Sometimes spectators would time the races from the stands. Let's say that the spectator is a distance, d, from the starter. The spectator (erroneously) starts their timer when they hear the sound from the starting gun. They should start the timer when they see the smoke from the starting gun. Who can calculate the timing error Δt in terms of d, the speed of sound (vs) and the speed of light (c)? I calculated 6.7 x 10^-7, with speed of sound = 343 m/s and speed of light = c. I just wanted to confirm if I was correct. I used x = x0 + 1/2 (v0 +v)(t).

I ran track in high school. Sometimes spectators would time the races from the stands. Let's say that the spectator is a distance, d, from the starter. The spectator (erroneously) starts their timer when they hear the sound from the starting gun. They should start the timer when they see the smoke from the starting gun. Who can calculate the timing error Δt in terms of d, the speed of sound (vs) and the speed of light (c)? I calculated 6.7 x 10^-7, with speed of sound = 343 m/s and speed of light = c. I just wanted to confirm if I was correct. I used x = x0 + 1/2 (v0 +v)(t).