Unless you are in the bedroom, it’s good to be ahead of schedule.
Enter the world of speed (the motion, not the drug). Men want things fast – fast cars, fast athlets, and even faster women. But we can’t always get what we want. Thankfully, Things People Hate understands your needs and provides the occasional topic to make your heartbeat…for the lack of a better term….fast.
Despite what you may think, the world’s fastest man (Usain Bolt), animal, production car, and computer do not even crack the top
10. Fastest Train
The Japanese JR-Maglev MLX01 reaches speeds of 581 km/h or in English lingo, 367 mph. It’s slightly faster than any wheeled trains, thanks to the superconducting magnets which allow for a larger gap and repulsive-type electrodynamic suspension (EDS).
9. Fastest Water Slide
“The Insano” is both high and fast. The water slide holds the record for the highest water slide in the world (41 meters) and is equivalance to a 14-story building. All that means is once you take a dip on this slide, your descending from the top to the botton in 4 to 5 seconds. Now that’s fast!
8. Fastest Submersible
The K-222, formerly K-162, is the only one of it’s type ever created. Commissioned on December 31, 1969, in the Soviet Union, the submersible reached a record speed of 44.7 knots during its heyday. However, that speed came at the price of high costs during construction, and both excessive noise and significant damage to hull features when used. Thus, making it very fast and very poor for war.
7. Fastest Manned Aircraft
The North American X-15 rocket-powered aircraft was part of the X-series of experimental aircraft, initiated with the Bell X-1, that were made for the USAF, NASA, and the USN. The X-15 set speed and altitude records in the early 1960s, reaching the edge of outer space and returning with valuable data used in aircraft and spacecraft design. It currently holds the world record for the fastest speed ever reached by a manned aircraft, a recorded 4,519 mph (7,273 km/h).
6. Fastest Helicopter
In theory, you can only reach a maximum speed of just over 250 miles per hour in a helicopter before spinning out of control. However, you can’t tell the Westland Lynx ZB500 that. At the European air show, the “slightly modified” helicopter reached a speed of 249.1 miles per hour or 400.8 km/h, making it the world’s fastest helicopter.
5. Fastest Wind
Fast wind, also known as a tornado, will seriously wreck havoc on your farm in Oklahoma. Just ask Moore, Oklahoma. On May 3, 1999 Oklahoma scientists measured the highest recorded wind speed at 318 mph and also emphasised the important note, “speed kills” (four people died).
4. Fastest Bird
The Peregrine Falcon, also known as the “Duck Hawk” in North America, can reach speeds of over 322 km/h (200 mph) in a dive, making it the fastest animal in the world. Sorry Cheetah.
3. Fastest Spacecraft
“New Horizons” is a NASA robotic spacecraft mission currently en route to the planet Pluto. Are we there yet? It is expected to be the first spacecraft to fly by and study Pluto and its moons, Charon, Nix, and Hydra. “New Horizons “was launched on January 19, 2006 and has an Earth-relative velocity of about 16.26 km/s or 58,536 km/h (10.1 mps or 36,360 mph) after its last engine shut down. Thus, it left Earth at the fastest speed ever recorded. “New Horizons” plans to arrive at Pluto on July 14, 2015. Sadly, the earth will be destroyed by 2012, so we’ll never know.
2. Fastest ‘Thing’ Ever Recorded
In modern physics, light is regarded as the fastest thing in the universe, and its velocity in empty space as a fundamental constant of nature. The speed of light in a vacuum is presently defined to be exactly 299,792,458 m/s (about 186,282.397 miles per second), or what you and I call “impossible to comprehend.” Think about this: If you travel around the earth’s equator at the speed of light you will travel around the entire planet earth 7.4 times in approximately one second. Yikes!
1. Superluminosity
Not to be outdone, tachyons are a putative class of particles which able to travel faster than the speed of light. Tachyons were first proposed by physicist Arnold Sommerfeld, and named by Gerald Feinberg. The word tachyon derives from the Greek tachus, meaning “speedy.” Tachyons have the strange properties that, when they lose energy, they gain speed. Consequently, when tachyons gain energy, they slow down. The slowest speed possible for tachyons is the speed of light.
