Isnt “Blitz” actually faster than “bullet”?

A bullet travels in the air with the speed of a bullet, but a blitz travels at the speed of light. As speed of light is obviously faster
than speed of bullet, blitz is faster than bullet in real life.

But in chess, it is used in reversed way, bullet for faster controls. So why is it like this in chess terminology? 🤔🤔

Confusion..🤪

When blitz was first introduced in 1950s it was the fastest time control and so the name .
Blitz had the same reputation what ultrabullet has today

I find no reference to blitz being related to light. I find many related to a fast attack and a gathering of fish. However, maybe bullet was so named as playing at that time control isn't chess but like playing Russian Roulette.

Blitzes (lightnings) do not travel with the speed of light. They are not lightbeams we see from the side, but they are channels of very hot, ionised air. They travel sideways with the speed of the wind they are in, and there growing is a rather slow and complex process of air being ionised at the top of the channel.

"Blitz" in chess refers to the English meaning, not the German word.

To add to @sheckley666 #4, the leader travels at around 60 km/s. The return stroke travels at around 27800 km/s which is around 10% of the speed of light (299792 km/s). For comparision, bullets travel less than 1 km/s.



source: www.quora.com/How-fast-does-lightning-travel

@Break_ToS good point!

@sheckley666 thnx for the information. But i thought when Blitz in meaning of lightning used it usually refers to the electrical discharge and the flash of light that we see as the result of it, which happens super quick. This feature of “being super quick” is what lightning symbolizes i think. So when it was called Blitz, they did not use it or associate it with “complex and rather slow growing process of ionization”

I found this: “Lightning travels at the speed of light, about 186,000 miles per second. This means that you see lightning pretty much when it happens. When lightning strikes, a noise is made which we call thunder. Thunder travels much slower, at the speed of sound, about 1088 feet per second. It takes sound about 5 seconds to travel one mile. You can observe this for yourself.”

According to the Source: http://www.espsciencetime.org/ThunderandLightning.aspx

@ChessGawdd oh, i didnt know that, what is the meaning of the word Blitz in english, which is not the the lightning in german?

“Blitz’ comes from the German word for lightning. Its arrival in the English language can be traced to the German military strategy of Blitzkrieg” blog.collinsdictionary.com/language-lovers/etymology-corner-blitz/

Blitz is German for lightning.
'Blitzkrieg' was the German strategy of very fast tank advances during World War II.
German bombing of British cities during World War II was also referred to as 'The Blitz'
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz
But anyway: regardless of how you interpret it lightning = blitz is faster than any bullet so the chess denominations are wrong in that respect.

I don't think bullet got it's name from the speed of the bullet. Probably it's more about visualising 1-1, the allowed time for the game.

Or maybe someone thought it sounded cool... Compare with "bulletproof coffee", which arguably sounds better than putting butter in coffee.

@Tasshaq That quote you included about lightning travelling at the speed of light is not how fast the LIGHTNING travels, but rather how fast the resulting flash travels. It looks like it came from somewhere explaining why lightning and thunder are not usually simultaneous but rather the thunder is delayed. Selfbrain's description is more accurate.

Still, 60km/s is pretty fast; far faster than a bullet.

@GonzoTheSmurf Who puts butter in coffee? That sounds bizzare.