- 9,332
- 8,069
From the Calculations page:
"Sometimes even something like "time seems frozen" or that nothing moves is stated. Often this kind of statements are hyperboles. However, should that not be the case one may assume that the apparent speed of the reference object is less than or equal to 0.001 m/s."
0.001 m/s has been the value we have been using for a while for feats in which characters perceive the world as frozen.
But as we can see on the Calculations page, this value has no source or explanation as to why it was chosen specifically for this type of feat.
I have always thought that this value came from the speed of a snail, which moves so slowly that it seems to be "frozen" in our perspective.
However, multiple studies and books have concluded that the speed of the snail is actually 0.013 m/s:
Snail's Pace, Last Word, New Scientist, October 2001: "Snails have been measured at speeds of 0.048 kilometres per hour."
Doherty, James G. Natural History. Speed of Animals. March 1974: "Garden snail 0.03 mph."
The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1999. New Jersey: Primedia, 1998: 572: ""Garden snail, 0.03 mph."
There are animals slower than snails, such as banana slugs.
Branson, Branley Allan. World & I. 11, 5 (May 1996): 166: "A large banana slug has been observed to cover 6.5 inches in 120 minutes. At that rate, a tortoise would seem fleet-footed."
The point I'm trying to make is that the value of 0.001 m/s is completely arbitrary and is not really based on anything.
@DontTalkDT Have provided the following sources stating snails have a speed of 0.001 m/s (though the second one actually says 0.0018 m/s), but as we can see in both of these pages, none of them have studies supporting such statements, with the first page being just a calculator.
These are just pages saying the snails have x speed without further information about the exact origin of that value, and therefore unreliable.
So my proposal is to change the standard frozen speed we use for calcs, from 0.001 m/s to 0.013 m/s, and make the following change to the Calculations page:
""Sometimes even something like "time seems frozen" or that nothing moves is stated. Often this kind of statements are hyperboles. However, should that not be the case one may assume that the apparent speed of the reference object is less than or equal to 0.013 m/s, as that's the standardized speed of garden snails, animals that move so slowly that they appear to be frozen in our perspective."
0.013 m/s is the only value that is repeated across multiple different sources, so that's why I chose it over the others.
"Sometimes even something like "time seems frozen" or that nothing moves is stated. Often this kind of statements are hyperboles. However, should that not be the case one may assume that the apparent speed of the reference object is less than or equal to 0.001 m/s."
0.001 m/s has been the value we have been using for a while for feats in which characters perceive the world as frozen.
But as we can see on the Calculations page, this value has no source or explanation as to why it was chosen specifically for this type of feat.
I have always thought that this value came from the speed of a snail, which moves so slowly that it seems to be "frozen" in our perspective.
However, multiple studies and books have concluded that the speed of the snail is actually 0.013 m/s:
Snail's Pace, Last Word, New Scientist, October 2001: "Snails have been measured at speeds of 0.048 kilometres per hour."
Doherty, James G. Natural History. Speed of Animals. March 1974: "Garden snail 0.03 mph."
The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1999. New Jersey: Primedia, 1998: 572: ""Garden snail, 0.03 mph."
There are animals slower than snails, such as banana slugs.
Branson, Branley Allan. World & I. 11, 5 (May 1996): 166: "A large banana slug has been observed to cover 6.5 inches in 120 minutes. At that rate, a tortoise would seem fleet-footed."
The point I'm trying to make is that the value of 0.001 m/s is completely arbitrary and is not really based on anything.
@DontTalkDT Have provided the following sources stating snails have a speed of 0.001 m/s (though the second one actually says 0.0018 m/s), but as we can see in both of these pages, none of them have studies supporting such statements, with the first page being just a calculator.
These are just pages saying the snails have x speed without further information about the exact origin of that value, and therefore unreliable.
So my proposal is to change the standard frozen speed we use for calcs, from 0.001 m/s to 0.013 m/s, and make the following change to the Calculations page:
""Sometimes even something like "time seems frozen" or that nothing moves is stated. Often this kind of statements are hyperboles. However, should that not be the case one may assume that the apparent speed of the reference object is less than or equal to 0.013 m/s, as that's the standardized speed of garden snails, animals that move so slowly that they appear to be frozen in our perspective."
0.013 m/s is the only value that is repeated across multiple different sources, so that's why I chose it over the others.
