Talk:Great Court, Trinity College, Cambridge

message: The article refers to the video tape of the Coe/Cram run. Could someone put it on youtube and let us know the link?
Many thanks
Brian Sacks
Briansacks 19:19, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trinity Great Court run 

message: The article specifies that the striking speed of the bells is affected by air density (the photo link is dead, btw), but it fails to mention that the same is true regarding the running speed of the athlete, with less dense air producing less resistance and therefore a faster achievable speed (however, he has to do so on less oxygen due to his pulmonary capacity remaining largely fixed). I do not know to what extent each effect compensates for the other, though.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.27.131.128 (talk) 15:34, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Air Density 

message: A guide once told me that the King's Gate, used to stand a couple of feet further into the courtyard. When the other sides of the Great Court were complete, the college wanted to move the gate back a little, in order to make the court square. However to do this they needed to move it onto a couple a feet of St John's College land.... and this is why the clock strikes the hour twice — once for Trinity and once for John's.
Is this story true? If so, does anyone know what year the gate was moved. -- Solipsist 12:22, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  King's Gate 

message: As "Keeper of the Clock" in Trinity I am interested in the facts being correct.  
Firstly, the distance around the cobbles is 341m.  I have measured this myself.  The perimeter of the grass will be much less than this, but this figure is of no importance.  The "exact dimensions" given (South - 87.8m, West  - 105.2m, North - 78.3m, East  - 99.4m) are incorrect.  Better figures are (measured around the cobbles) South - 82.5m, West  - 99.9m, North - 69.4m, East  - 88.9m
Secondly, there is no change in the route taken by competitors around the court.  The Great Court Run is only a true run if run on the flagstones.  Competitors, such as Dobin, cannot claim to have completed the Run.  A video of part of Dobin's run can be found at http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/video/GtCtRun2007b.wmv where he can be seen running on the cobbles.
Thirdly, the duration of the striking of twelve depends on the meteorological conditions of the day in question.  On a cold, dry, high-pressure day the bells strike more slowly than on a warm, humid low-pressure day.  The difference is as much as 15% which is 6 seconds out of the "normal" 43 seconds.  For typical October days (the official run takes place in October) the likely difference is more mear +/- 1 second.  Moreover, depending on when the clock has last been wound, the duration of the strike varies.  This is because the wire rope that drives the strike winds around a drum on more than one layer.  If the rope is on the second layer the strike runs about 5% faster.  This does not normally affect the official run. 
Hugh Hunt, Keeper of the Clock, Trinity College, Cambridge
Hughhunt (talk) 21:41, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the info.  The RCHME report on Trinity College gives the dimensions as "273 ft. by 325 ft. average".  This corresponds to 89.6m by 106.6m, but presumably refers to the outer perimeter of the court. Peter Sager's book gives 370m for the length of the Great Court Run (and says that you can save 15m by running on the cobbles) – the original German addition is dated 2003, before the distances were put on Wikipedia (but those figures might have been on the net somewhere else).  The college website gives 341m as the length of the run, which is presumably based on the measurements that you made.  Bluap (talk) 00:11, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dimensions of Great Court and other "facts" 

message: Appears only to be based on anecdotal evidence. Contact college to confirm?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.184.8 (talk) 18:18, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dubious 

message: I've just added data measured (automatically) over 2018-2020 of the duration of the Great Court Run bells.  Perhaps this stuff needs its own page?  Or is it OK here?  
I've been Keeper of the Clock since 2004 and have been measuring all sorts of things as accurately as I can. Trinity Clock Monitoring   This strike duration data is definitive, I'd say, for the time being.  No doubt future generations of Clock Keepers will meddle with things, as every generation does, and the timings will change.  Perhaps I'll measure this all again in a few years time. Hughhunt (talk) 12:35, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Duration of clock striking twelve