The Zero-Second Hit
Will Lestrange
June 2019
The referee releases the Quaffle. You scan the pitch with your eyes to see where it's headed, fly directly there, and snag control of the scarlet leather ball!
How fast would you think the quickest time for this whole process[1] would be? Three seconds? Two seconds? One? Even faster?
If you guessed one, you have good instincts! The fastest recorded Quaffle snag in a game is one second – and we normally see something this fast nearly every game. But... do you think people can go even faster?
To answer that question, let's look at the practice pitches. Every house has at least one practice Quidditch pitch and there is also a practice pitch or two owned by HOL as a whole. Most of those pitches are capable of measuring time to the nearest tenth of a second... and some can do even faster than that. And it turns out that the fastest Quaffle snag measured, when timing is this precise, is somewhere around 0.7 seconds! This requires the Quaffle to be thrown right in front of the player... without any lapses in recognition or movement to slow the player down[2].
But official Quidditch matches are not measured in tenths of seconds; they are measured in *whole* seconds. And as such, the only official measurement faster than a one-second is... a zero-second Quaffle! This means that, according to the referee's log, you snagged the Quaffle in the exact same second that it was released. Arithmantically, this can actually happen! In fact, if you snagged a Quaffle seven-tenths of a second after its release (the current limit of Quaffle skill), there is a 30% chance – depending on when in its second the Quaffle was released – that you will grab it the same second it was released according to the referee's bot.
And so, these days, after every Quidditch match, I look at the official referee logs in hope that a zero-second Quaffle has been recorded. Sometimes, my own logs show a zero-second Quaffle or two... only to find that because the referee's clock was slightly different than mine, the official logs recorded them all as one-second Quaffles! Other times, I check at the referee's logs only to find that they only measured the game to the nearest minute – not the nearest second! And, as such, the zero-second Quaffle has never officially been spotted.
That said, I am of the opinion that a zero-second Quaffle will happen: sooner, rather than later. After all, players' brooms and reaction times are getting faster and faster. Back in the days of Seven Ashitaka, Dom McDermott, Matt Whisp, Isabelle Lestrange, and other names that may or may not have faded into the midst of times, broom warping (known to Muggles as 'lag') was a major fact of the life... to the point that Quaffle grabs in fewer than three seconds or so were extremely rare. The standard measurement of warping, the 'ping,' was traditionally measured in whole seconds – and since it takes two 'pings' to grab a Quaffle, a world where a 'ping' normally took at least a whole second meant that it would be impossible for a Quaffle to be grabbed in fewer than two seconds! Indeed, those days it was not unheard of for people to ride a Muggle bus to a different place to rent a broom less subject to warping for a Quidditch match! These days, though, 'ping's are measured in hundredths of seconds, and normal 'pings' take somewhere between 0.25 and 0.40 seconds, with the fastest 'ping' these days being around 0.18 seconds. As such, two 'pings' can normally be completed comfortably under a second, which is why one-second Quaffles have become almost commonplace these days. In fact, this season, no fewer than 11 players have managed at least one one-second Quaffle snag!
What would it take for players to get to the next level, from the one-second Quaffle to the zero-second Quaffle? Surprisingly, flying speed has essentially nothing to do with this. Flying speed is more useful for those situations when the referee throws the Quaffle all the way to the other end of the pitch while, say, "a tongue of flame erupts from the bonder's wand and winds around the hands of those who take the vow," and you want to get there in ten or fifteen seconds. No, this is all about having lightning-fast reflexes (both with your eyes to see the Quaffle and your hands to grab it)... as well as making sure you have the latest broom, with the smallest possible amount of warp. After all, if you can get your 'ping' down to 0.15 seconds, your fastest grab might only take about half a second instead of seven tenths! Which brings us to the final factor in zero second Quaffles: luck. You need to have luck with the Quaffle being thrown right in front of you instead of all the way at the other end of the pitch... and, oh yeah, you need luck with the Quaffle being released at the beginning of a second instead of the end. Even a half-second Quaffle snag will only result in a 'zero-second Quaffle' recorded about half of the time; if the Quaffle is released in the first half of a second, you will snag it in the second half of the same second... but if the Quaffle is released in the second half of a second, you won't snag it until the first half of the next second!
Now, as far as I can tell, there are definitely players on the pitch who have the reaction time, broom quality, and luck to grab a Quaffle that fast. And there are also plenty of older players who, if they were to return to the pitch with modern brooms, might manage the feat themselves. So really, the zero-second Quaffle? It's only a matter of time before it happens!
The referee releases the Quaffle. You scan the pitch with your eyes to see where it's headed, fly directly there, and snag control of the scarlet leather ball!
How fast would you think the quickest time for this whole process[1] would be? Three seconds? Two seconds? One? Even faster?
If you guessed one, you have good instincts! The fastest recorded Quaffle snag in a game is one second – and we normally see something this fast nearly every game. But... do you think people can go even faster?
To answer that question, let's look at the practice pitches. Every house has at least one practice Quidditch pitch and there is also a practice pitch or two owned by HOL as a whole. Most of those pitches are capable of measuring time to the nearest tenth of a second... and some can do even faster than that. And it turns out that the fastest Quaffle snag measured, when timing is this precise, is somewhere around 0.7 seconds! This requires the Quaffle to be thrown right in front of the player... without any lapses in recognition or movement to slow the player down[2].
But official Quidditch matches are not measured in tenths of seconds; they are measured in *whole* seconds. And as such, the only official measurement faster than a one-second is... a zero-second Quaffle! This means that, according to the referee's log, you snagged the Quaffle in the exact same second that it was released. Arithmantically, this can actually happen! In fact, if you snagged a Quaffle seven-tenths of a second after its release (the current limit of Quaffle skill), there is a 30% chance – depending on when in its second the Quaffle was released – that you will grab it the same second it was released according to the referee's bot.
And so, these days, after every Quidditch match, I look at the official referee logs in hope that a zero-second Quaffle has been recorded. Sometimes, my own logs show a zero-second Quaffle or two... only to find that because the referee's clock was slightly different than mine, the official logs recorded them all as one-second Quaffles! Other times, I check at the referee's logs only to find that they only measured the game to the nearest minute – not the nearest second! And, as such, the zero-second Quaffle has never officially been spotted.
That said, I am of the opinion that a zero-second Quaffle will happen: sooner, rather than later. After all, players' brooms and reaction times are getting faster and faster. Back in the days of Seven Ashitaka, Dom McDermott, Matt Whisp, Isabelle Lestrange, and other names that may or may not have faded into the midst of times, broom warping (known to Muggles as 'lag') was a major fact of the life... to the point that Quaffle grabs in fewer than three seconds or so were extremely rare. The standard measurement of warping, the 'ping,' was traditionally measured in whole seconds – and since it takes two 'pings' to grab a Quaffle, a world where a 'ping' normally took at least a whole second meant that it would be impossible for a Quaffle to be grabbed in fewer than two seconds! Indeed, those days it was not unheard of for people to ride a Muggle bus to a different place to rent a broom less subject to warping for a Quidditch match! These days, though, 'ping's are measured in hundredths of seconds, and normal 'pings' take somewhere between 0.25 and 0.40 seconds, with the fastest 'ping' these days being around 0.18 seconds. As such, two 'pings' can normally be completed comfortably under a second, which is why one-second Quaffles have become almost commonplace these days. In fact, this season, no fewer than 11 players have managed at least one one-second Quaffle snag!
What would it take for players to get to the next level, from the one-second Quaffle to the zero-second Quaffle? Surprisingly, flying speed has essentially nothing to do with this. Flying speed is more useful for those situations when the referee throws the Quaffle all the way to the other end of the pitch while, say, "a tongue of flame erupts from the bonder's wand and winds around the hands of those who take the vow," and you want to get there in ten or fifteen seconds. No, this is all about having lightning-fast reflexes (both with your eyes to see the Quaffle and your hands to grab it)... as well as making sure you have the latest broom, with the smallest possible amount of warp. After all, if you can get your 'ping' down to 0.15 seconds, your fastest grab might only take about half a second instead of seven tenths! Which brings us to the final factor in zero second Quaffles: luck. You need to have luck with the Quaffle being thrown right in front of you instead of all the way at the other end of the pitch... and, oh yeah, you need luck with the Quaffle being released at the beginning of a second instead of the end. Even a half-second Quaffle snag will only result in a 'zero-second Quaffle' recorded about half of the time; if the Quaffle is released in the first half of a second, you will snag it in the second half of the same second... but if the Quaffle is released in the second half of a second, you won't snag it until the first half of the next second!
Now, as far as I can tell, there are definitely players on the pitch who have the reaction time, broom quality, and luck to grab a Quaffle that fast. And there are also plenty of older players who, if they were to return to the pitch with modern brooms, might manage the feat themselves. So really, the zero-second Quaffle? It's only a matter of time before it happens!
[1]For those less familiar with our IRC version of Quidditch, the time interval in question is the time from a question being posted in the box to the time that you entered the answer.
[2]Think of a question with a very short answer, such as the number '3' or the letter 'j'... and fast 'pings' - at 0.2 seconds or so - combined with really fast human reaction time.
[2]Think of a question with a very short answer, such as the number '3' or the letter 'j'... and fast 'pings' - at 0.2 seconds or so - combined with really fast human reaction time.