Sherlock Holmes

[NW Mailing List]

<snip>

>

>

> Now what was that calculation by Sherlock Holmes, being able to 

> determine the speed of the train by noting how many telegraph poles 

> were being passed every minute or whatever?

>

> Ah - http://barzilai.org/cr/sherlock.html - but surely that is not a 

> late 19th century railway locomotive in or of the British Isles?

<snip>

Once you've started it can take you lots of places:

As Holmes and Watson rode the train to look into the missing race horse 
Silver Blaze, that speed was exactly 53.5 miles per hour. Sherlock 
Holmes calculates it himself, using the distance between telegraph poles 
as a guide. Thanks to Holmes’s little trick and Dr. Watson’s recording 
of same, we can positively say that the top documented speed of Sherlock 
Holmes was just that: 53.5 m.p.h.

So as you’re driving down the typical American highway with a speed 
limit of 55 miles per hour, try keeping it down to 53.5 . . . do you 
really need to move any faster than Sherlock Holmes? He was only headed 
to investigate a murder and a horse-napping. If you have something more 
important on your agenda, go right ahead, I’m sure Holmes himself would 
agree with the necessity of a higher rate of speed . . . .

http://www.sherlockpeoria.net/Who_is_Sherlock/SherlockHistory2009/TopSpeed.html

and *how many telegraph posts did holmes count?

*extract from "Silver Blaze" - Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

“We are going well,” said he, looking out of the window and glancing at 
his watch. “Our rate at present is fifty-three and a half miles an hour.”
“I have not observed the quarter-mile posts,” said I.
“Nor have I. But the telegraph posts upon this line are sixty yards 
apart, and the calculation is a simple one.”

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?p=199212

I bid you good night

Dominic
London

-- 
Please help me support the Pirate Castle at
http://www.justgiving.com/dominicpinto

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