--- title: Olympiad: speed, space and seasons ★★★ — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Olympiad: speed, space and seasons ★★★», a lesson of the physics course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: The last olympiad lesson goes fastest and furthest: speeds, rockets, the spinning Earth, the Moon, tides and seasons, in puzzles wh --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/44-olympiad-speed-space-and-seasons/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Physics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/) / Olympiad: speed, space and seasons ★★★ # Olympiad: speed, space and seasons ★★★ Lesson 44 of the physics course of Mova's primary school: 18 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/physics/44-olympiad-speed-space-and-seasons/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/44-olympiad-speed-space-and-seasons/0/) — The last olympiad lesson goes fastest and furthest: speeds, rockets, the spinning Earth, the Moon, tides and seasons, in puzzles where one hidden step makes all the difference. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/44-olympiad-speed-space-and-seasons/1/) — Speed puzzles always need two numbers, a distance and a time; to compare two runners, work out how long each would take over the same distance. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/44-olympiad-speed-space-and-seasons/2/) — Some sky puzzles hide a famous myth: the seasons are not caused by the Earth coming nearer to the Sun, because we are nearest in January, in the middle of the northern winter. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/44-olympiad-speed-space-and-seasons/3/) — Picture Jack in Sydney on Christmas Day: "Stinkin' hot arvo, mate, off to the beach in me togs": "arvo" means afternoon and "togs" means a swimsuit, and it is summer there because the southern half of the Earth leans towards the Sun in December. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/44-olympiad-speed-space-and-seasons/4/) — Some claims sound like wild hyperbole but are plain fact, such as "we're whizzing round the Sun at 100,000 kilometres an hour right now", while others that sound sensible, such as "the Moon has a dark side that never gets sunshine", are myths. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/44-olympiad-speed-space-and-seasons/5/) — A car going steadily at 60 kilometres an hour covers 1 kilometre each minute, so 20 kilometres in 20 minutes. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/44-olympiad-speed-space-and-seasons/6/) — To compare runners who ran different distances, work out the time each would take for the same distance: 200 metres in 32 seconds is 100 metres in 16 seconds. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/44-olympiad-speed-space-and-seasons/7/) — At twice the speed a car needs about four times the braking distance, so at half the speed it needs only about a quarter. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/44-olympiad-speed-space-and-seasons/8/) — In the morning the Sun is in the east, so shadows point west; at midday in Britain the Sun is in the south, so shadows point north; in the evening they point east. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/44-olympiad-speed-space-and-seasons/9/) — Most beaches have two high tides a day, about 12 and a half hours apart, and each day's tides come about 50 minutes later than the day before. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/44-olympiad-speed-space-and-seasons/10/) — Every fourth year is a leap year with an extra day, 29 February; 2020, 2024 and 2028 are leap years. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/44-olympiad-speed-space-and-seasons/11/) — The Earth is nearest to the Sun in early January; the seasons come from the tilt of the Earth, not from its distance. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/44-olympiad-speed-space-and-seasons/12/) — The Moon is always half lit by the Sun, and at new Moon the side we never see is in full sunshine. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/44-olympiad-speed-space-and-seasons/13/) — The Moon spins once for each trip round the Earth, so we always see the same face. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/44-olympiad-speed-space-and-seasons/14/) — A rocket throws hot gas out behind it and the gas pushes the rocket forward, so it does not need air to push on. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/44-olympiad-speed-space-and-seasons/15/) — In a braking car you lurch forward, but a helium balloon on a string leans backwards, because the heavier air sloshes forward and pushes it back. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/44-olympiad-speed-space-and-seasons/16/) — The Earth carries us round the Sun at about 100,000 kilometres an hour, and the ground at the equator spins at about 1,600 kilometres an hour, but the motion is so smooth that we feel nothing. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/44-olympiad-speed-space-and-seasons/17/) — From slowest to fastest: a snail, the fastest human runners at about 40 kilometres an hour, a cheetah at about 100, a passenger plane at about 900, the space station at about 28,000. - ← previous: [Olympiad: sound, light, heat, electricity and magnets ★★★](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/43-olympiad-sound-light-heat-and-magnets/) - ↑ back to [Physics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/)