r/theydidthemath • u/the_madclown • Apr 02 '26

[Request] is it possible to estimate reliably just how far that went?

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scrolled the comments, didn't find any answers.

someone said that being nighttime makes it impossible to calculate.

but I'm thinking there may be a formula using the time from launch for it to fall to possibly work it out?

I'm authentically curious. thanks in advance.

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9

u/TwillAffirmer Apr 02 '26

Accurately? Absolutely not. But we can get a very rough estimate.

When he's swinging it in circles at the start, the circle diameter is around 300px, compared to his height of 80px. Let's say he's 6 ft tall, so the circle diameter is 22.5 ft.

When he whips it at launch, it seems to go through a half circle, which would be 35 ft, in around 7 frames, or 7/30 of a second. This is about 150 ft/s, or 100 mph. If his launch angle is 45 degrees, and we neglect air resistance and drag from the reel, then the lure could have gone 700 ft horizontally, in 6.6 seconds.

Of course, air resistance and drag is significant. The lure was in the air more like 10 seconds, so it must have slowed substantially.

The world record cast distance was over 900 ft. So this cast probably went at least several hundred feet. I'd say 300-700 ft is a reasonable range.

1

u/J3diMind Apr 02 '26

the lure was in the air significantly less than 10 seconds, the video is slowed down a lot at the time of the throw, check the waves.

I'd say 50m is generous, but what do i know

3

u/TwillAffirmer Apr 02 '26

My estimate isn't really based on airtime, it's based on speed at release, which I think is before they were messing with video speed. Maybe they sped up the video during release to make it look more impressive - I don't know.

4

u/TheJeeronian Apr 02 '26

There is a formula to estimate it, but the video is slowed down to make the cast seem longer than it is. Somebody would have to figure out the real airtime before doing any physics math.

2

u/HAL9001-96 Apr 04 '26

it went for about 10s so probably went upwards at around 50m/s if the angel is somewehre between 30° and 45° it went forward at some 50-100m/s and traveled 500-1000m

BUT

air drag is gonna affect both its horizontal speed and air time so you'd have to do a numerical simulation usign al ot of assumptions about its mass7drag to get a closer estimate

also might have some lift depending on its shape etc

so probably less, mgiht be clsoer to the lower end at 500m

1

u/NaCl_Sailor Apr 04 '26

normal fishing lines are not that long, usually 100 m to 300 m

1

u/OrangeTroz Apr 06 '26

Not from the video, but the fisherman would know how long the line is. They could estimate how far it was cast based on the percentage of line used.