Running Memes

The math here is running in circles, much like the poor souls on this track. If one lap equals 1/3 mile, then three laps should equal exactly 1 mile. Instead, we've got 1.2 miles—a 20% bonus nobody asked for. Somewhere, a mathematician is having heart palpitations while a physics teacher is using this as an example of how measurement errors compound. The real exercise here isn't running—it's mental gymnastics trying to make sense of this calculation.