The quarterfinals of the U.
S. Open start today,and if you don’t manage to find out to Flushing Meadows, the Wall Street Journal has a cool way to experience fraction of the action — that moment a line judge rules a ball in or out.
The game plays video clips of a ball hitting the court at full speed, and from the perspective of one of the judges. You find to call it in or out. It’s a good demonstration of how super-slender margins and human reflexes are a gigantic fraction of top-tier sports.
Another great example of that is “Fractions of a moment: An Olympic Musical,” done by Amanda Cox at the unique York Times for the 2010 Olympics. It uses visuals and sound to convey how oh-so-very close the top athletes got to gold.
Look at women’s 1000-meter speedskating, where Annette Gerritson of the Netherlands missed Gold by 0.02 seconds — a gap that’s almost inaudible.
Folks at the Times are particularly good at finding ways to exhibit close margins. The video "One Race, and Every Medalist Ever" is a favorite of WNYC's Data News Team. It nicely shows the relative finishing times for every Olympic medal winner in the men's 100-meter sprint,and how the disagreement between bronze in 1896 and Usain Bolt's gold in 2012 is only approximately 3 seconds.
Source: wnyc.org