User blog:Lightbuster30/Catching a Crossbow Bolt

So in my upcoming fanfic, an early feat occurs. The MC: Riley Burton, turns 180 degrees and brings his hand from rest position to his face, catching a high velocity crossbow bolt roughly a foot from his face. I intend to calc his reactionary speed.

Formula for speed iirc is distance Riley moved x Velocity of the projectile / distance from projectile to Riley. The bolt was described as "high velocity" so I will be using 134.112 m/s for it's speed. We also know the bolt was roughly a foot from Riley when he caught it, so we already have most of the numbers.

For distance, Riley brought his hand from rest position (from his waist to his face) to his face. Now I got a ruler and using myself, my hand when extended downwards is 37 inches from my face, or 0.9398 meters...roughly.

However Riley also rotated 180 degrees to catch the bolt. This is where things get complicated. I have limited knowledge on angular change, so here is what I did: I used half the circumference of a circle using the length of my foot as a radius in order to find out the distance travelled. My feet are 11.5 inches, but I prefer size 13 shoes. So the radius of the circle is 0.3302 meters, which gives a circumference of 2.07 meters https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&source=hp&ei=dqSRWs-sHeyiggf77IjIBw&q=circumference+of+a+circle+with+radius&oq=&gs_l=mobile-gws-hp.1.2.35i39l3.0.0..2212...0....238.238.2-1............mobile-gws-wiz-hp.....3.G7s1aG0Ij%2BM%3D. Divide by half since it was a half rotation, which gives us 1.035 meters. Add 0.9398 meters for hand movement to get the full distance moved which should be 1.9748 meters.

1.974 8 m x 134.112 m/s / 0.3048 m = 868.912 m/s or Mach 2.53327113703, barley Supersonic+ assuming my math is right. That being said I'm not sure it is, particularly my "distance Riley travelled". If someone could evaluate this it would be helpful tk me.