As a result of Shezza's Denarian Renegade thread:

Dumbledore can move pretty fast when he wants to. As we saw in HBP at the Dursleys' house, he can draw his wand faster than the eye can follow.

We should do the calculations of this.

You could calculate the minimum speed Dumbledore draws his wand at, using the frame rate of the eyes and the distance Dumbledore's wand travelled.

So, using that overly simply yet useful formula:

Speed > Distance / Time

We can say:

Dumbledore's minimum Wand Draw Speed > Length of Dumbledore's wand / Minimum speed needed for an object to not be picked up by the eye

However, it's rather complicated by this:

The eye doesn't have a frame rate.

Still, there's gotta be a specific speed at which the eye can't keep up with something so the calculation is still viable.

Help, anyone?

Edit: I have discovered an the speed at which the human eye percieves objects: effectively 60 frames per second, according to this:

So, now we have to turn this into a calculation. I shall take the length of Dumbledore's wand to be 14 inches.

So would I be right in this calculation:

Speed (inches per second) > 14 (inches) / 1/60th (seconds)

?

If so, Dumbledore can draw his wand at roughly 23 inches a second.

Edit2: Wait, that's wrong. The flicker fusion frequency is when something becomes a blur, not when it moves too fast to be seen. So 23 inches a second is the point at which drawing his wand would be a blur, but Dumbledore's wand draw is described thus:

So it will be at least 23 inches a second, but probably quite a bit more.

 

His hand was damaged from a horcrux on top of it all.

 

Well, to be fair, 23 inches a second isn't that fast.

Put your dominant hand on your opposite pectoral (or boob), and throw your hand out diagonally (if right handed, to the forward right, if left, to the forward left).

You can easily do 48 inches in a second. An old man doing half that isn't amazing at all.

What's unusual is not his speed, but how close his wand is to his hand, and its availability to him. Grabbing it from within his sleeve must be difficult. However, this can also be disproven - he had already drawn it (the spell to close the door).

 

So either he put it away after doing that spell and then re-drew it, or JKR forgot she had already had him draw it. I'll go for the first, as her editors should have picked up on the second.

 

If you practice something for a long enough time (usually not more than 10 years are necessary) you can do a complicated move in the blink of an eye.
Considering how old Dumbledore is and how long he has used his wand i find it likely that he has drawn it at least a million times in his life and the flick of his wrist to make it shoot out of his sleeve (which would be the fastest way he could draw it in my opinion) would be second nature to him. How long is "barely" ? Personally i'd say a draw in about half a second is both realistic and fast enough to qualify for the description JKR used.

 

Err... your math looks way off to me.

Because when I do that calculation I get 840 inches per second (14 divided by 1/60th or 14 times 60). Even still, I don't think you can measure some aspects of magic. I mean, if the wand chooses the wizard, then you'd think decades and decades of use would form a strong connection between a wizard and his wand. The frequent and practiced motion of drawing it could be magically enhanced, as the wand might be choosing the wizard again, and jumping to his hand. Or the wizard could be summoning it to a degree. And of course if Harry 'barely saw it' then how much did he see? Was there a blur? Maybe Harry was only 'barely' watching.

Too many unknowns and immeasurables. I'd expect he can draw it pretty fast when he's alert though.

 

So it is...I don't know what happened with my maths (read: my calculator) there. 840 inches a second is a much more satisfying answer.

 

Or you could get a life...

 

Lol, k.

 

I just took a look at a few of your other posts, and think I'm going to be the first to call a tridentwatch. The quality of your writing is similar, and you have the same misplaced eagerness to please by trying to appear hardcore but actually looking like a loser.

@Darius: Lulz.