New Speed Record Set For Wind-Powered Vehicles 138
Hugh Pickens writes "Richard Jenkins reached 126.1mph in his Greenbird car on the dry plains of Ivanpah Lake in Nevada, setting a new world land speed record for a wind-powered vehicle. 'It's great; it's one of those things that you spend so long trying to do and when it actually happens, it's almost too easy,' says Jenkins. The Greenbird is a carbon fiber composite vehicle that uses wind (and nothing else) for power. The designers describe it as a 'very high performance sailboat,' but one that uses a solid wing, rather than a sail, to generate movement. Due to the shape of the craft, especially at such high speeds, the wings also provide lift; a useful trait for an aircraft, but very hazardous for a car. To compensate for this, the designers have added small wings to 'stick' the car to the ground, in the same way Formula 1 cars do. 'Greenbird weighs 600kg when it's standing still,' says Jenkins. 'But at speed, the effect of the wings make her weigh just over a ton.' Jenkins has also built a wind-powered craft that travels on ice, rather than land. 'Now that we've broken the record, I'm going back on to the ice craft. There's still some debate as to whether traveling on ice or land will be faster.'"
New speed record for wind-powered land vehicles? (Score:4, Funny)
Crap (Score:3, Funny)
I hate breaking out the calculator to compare 600kg to a ton. Relative increase, I guess.
Re:Crap (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Crap (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, so what's a megagram? Or is that 1024kg?
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Re:Crap (Score:4, Informative)
I should have put a smiley :)
But I do live in the US and so I really wonder why people use "ton" in supposedly metric-standardized countries? I mean, I know that 1000kg is sort-of close to the old 2000lbs, but it is really ambiguous and there is the perfectly good Mega. At the very least, it should be spelled "tonne", right?
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A ton (known as a "long ton" in the US) is 2240lb i.e. 1016kg.
In Commonwealth countries, to make things easier to calculate, a ton is now generally taken as 1000kg.
In America, to make things easier to calculate, a ton is now generally taken as 2000lb i.e. 907kg.
The spelling is now largely irrelevant since nobody really remembers the old system that well. All official or scientific measurements are in kilograms anyway, ton and tonne are both just colloquial, it never needs to be precisely disambiguated in th
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Don't forget that it's also a colloquialism for 100mph!
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Actually you are wrong, presuming you are British. The metric ton and the long ton are so close that you never had to transition. In the US we use the short ton, with exceptions like the Navy - I guess they are still hauling around wine? :)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mebibyte [wikipedia.org]
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1 ton = 1000kg, welcome to the metric system.
Not so fast. Do you mean a British ton [wikipedia.org], US ton [wikipedia.org], or metric ton(ne)? [wikipedia.org] And, for more confusion, see that there is also a French ton [st-and.ac.uk].
Okay. I should stop being facetious and get my 7 hours of sleep (relative to current Earth's rotation period - has to be said, because it is slowing down).
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How many stones [wikipedia.org] is that?
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google to the rescue [google.co.uk]
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s/ton/tonne/; # makes it right with the story.
"Tonne" is, I believe, always metric: 1000 kg (aprox 2,200 lb, or 1.1 ton (or 1.0 long ton).
This is almost the weight of half a cord of seasoned oak firewood, or half a cord of green fir. Which has only a chewbackan meaning in this context. But it does leaven the pedantry a bit.
Need more coffee...
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it's the weight of 1 cubic metre of water.
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What I really hate is when TFA is misquoted in the summary, now I see that Jenkins said "tonne" which IS metric. D-oh!
Re:Crap (Score:5, Interesting)
From wikipedia: "The name statute mile originates from a statute of the Parliament of England in 1592 during the reign of Elizabeth I. This defined the statute mile as 5,280 ft or 1,760 yards; or 63,360 inches. Both statute and international miles are divided into eight furlongs. In turn a furlong is ten chains; a chain is 22 yards and a yard is three feet, making up 5,280 ft."
Seriously, WTF?
Re:Crap (Score:5, Informative)
It's probably for dividing up plots and things. It's nice to be able to evenly divide things into other things. Without the "funny measurements" you end up with lots of fractions, which were much less easy to deal with in the days when a calculator was a person, and most normal people were lucky if they could read.
Note also that an acre is 10 square chains, and 10 acres is a square furlong.
What is a mile? It's a least-common-multiple(ish) of several smaller measurements which happens to be a convenient size for people traveling on foot. The km is also a convenient size for foot travel, but you can only divide it by 2s and 5s without resorting to fractions.
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What is a mile?
The word "mile" comes from mille, latin for thousand (just like the milli- prefix). A mile is 1000 paces of the Roman legions (a pace is 2 steps). At least that is the basis for the general distance- the exact amount depended on who decided to define what exactly it meant (such as the English defining it as the above post points out).
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No! Everything must be multiples of ten!
Long live METRIC TIME!
"At the tone, the time will be 73 after 95... "
"BEEP"
Then, with time sorted out, we can start tackling the metric calendar... 10 months, with 100 days (10 weeks).
Sure, you'll have fewer birthdays in your lifetime, but its well worth the benefits of a 1,000-days per year calendar.
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Get over it.
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Actually, 5280 feet is very easy to calculate with - it's evenly divisible by all sorts of things. 5280 = 2^5 x 3 x 5 x 11
If only they'd picked 4,620 feet, we'd really be in the pink. 4620 = 2^2 x 3 x 5 x 7 x 11.
Near light speed? (Score:2)
I doubt they're going fast enough for relativistic effects to increase their effective mass by 400 kg.
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Weight and mass are different things. Their usage is correct.
Re:Near light speed? (Score:5, Informative)
Their usage is dead wrong. Weight is the effect of gravity on mass. The vehicle doesn't "weigh" more at speed - the effect of gravity on it hasn't changed. It just generates a down-force from the wing. To say that it weighs more is about as accurate as saying your weight changes as you jump up and down on a scale, or that an airplane weighs less than nothing when it's flying.
Since energy can be converted to mass, they would have to be going at a large percentage of c to actually "weigh" more.
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Since energy can be converted to mass, they would have to be going at a large percentage of c to actually "weigh" more.
That's a non sequitur. Fast moving bodies do not have a higher "effective mass" because some of the energy is converted into mass. It's just an interpretation of the fact that as you approach c it takes more and more energy to accelerate. Another interpretation is that the mass is constant and the momentum does not depend linearly on velocity, but approaches infinity as the velocity approaches c.
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For most people, weight means "apparent weight". The force that a weighing scale (theoretical or otherwise) would measure if you could put the object on it.
Which in many circumstances will be something like:
mass * acceleration due to gravity - bouyancy due to fluid/air the object is in - the force due to the earth spinning + "other stuff".
"other stuff" could include downforce.
This
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We all know the craft's mass does not change. The weight also does not change, if weight is defined as the total gravity force acting between the object and the Earth on average. Its apparent weight does increase however, where apparent weight is the total force pushing it towards the ground. "Weight" already contains far too many assumptions to be anything but a pretty nebulous measurement under any circumstance. Thus, in context, saying that the craft's weight increases is perfectly logical.
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Their usage is dead wrong. Weight is the effect of gravity on mass.
This has been pointed out already, but bears repeating: That is not so. Weight is what a scale measures. Weight is quite literally the value you get when you weigh something.
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So if I stand on a scale, but I'm also lifting up some of my weight on the doorframe, I suddenly weigh less? I don't think so, Clyde.
People would quite accurately point out that I was cheating, that my "weight" did not change.
Ditto with the claim that the vehicle gains 400 pounds of weight at speed - it gets additional down-force. Force != weight, or in this case, downforce != weight. Get over it. If
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You really are a tiresome pedant. Let it go already.
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Seems you can't take your own advice ... :-)
Look, the article is wrong, and it perpetuates a common misunderstanding, one that, oddly enough, seems to be more common today than it was a few decades ago. This is probably more due to the dumbing down of the school curriculum, and people embracing the "don't wanna know" mind-set - the same mind-set, btw, that gives us creationists, Intelligent Design, "dinosaurs walked with humans," "houses never go down
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So if I stand on a scale, but I'm also lifting up some of my weight on the doorframe, I suddenly weigh less? I don't think so, Clyde.
People would quite accurately point out that I was cheating, that my "weight" did not change.
Yes, you would weigh less. However, when people weigh themselves, they are actually interested in their mass and not their weight, even though casual English is not exact about the usage there. That is why people would point out that you are cheating - you are ruining the approximation of mass as weight.
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Actually, if the spacecraft were stationary instead of in orbit, you would be able to measure your weight on a scale, no problem. It would be sell, since your mass is further from the center of the earth, but it would still be the measurement of gravity on your mass. If you were at the center of the earth, your weight would be nothing (since there's an equal amount of the earth's mass pulling you in each direction), but your mass would still be the same.
As for your roller-coaster ride, that's the same a
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If an elephant we
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Once you add a second body, you are now able to to actually measure the influence of the second body's mass on the first (in other words, get its' weight, as opposed to just its' mass).
And no. they shouldn't have said "apparent weight" - they had already mentioned the down-force generated by the horizontal wings - they could have just s
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Do you also say "mass is a force"?
Also, you're wrong about it not being important - if the vehicle really DID "weigh a ton", instead of 600 kg, the suspension system, frame, and tires would have to be beefier to handle the extra lateral forces generated when not moving in a straight line. Think about it for a minute or two ...
Re:Near light speed? (Score:5, Informative)
Not quite. The downward force when it is stationary is 600gN, the downward force when it is moving is 1000gN. The downward force due to gravity, also known as the weight, in both cases is 600gN. The mass in both cases is 600Kg. Neither the weight, not the mass, change. The mass could only change as a result of things being added to or removed from the vehicle, or as the result of relativistic effects (which are present at the recorded speed, but not significant enough to be measured). The weight could change if the mass changed, or if the vehicle climbed far enough from the centre of the Earth for the inverse-square attraction to be reduced (again, this is unlikely to happen unless it raced up a steep mountain; g varies a bit, but not enough to be worth bothering about, over the surface of the Earth). The downward force can change for a wide variety of reasons, but in this case due to a pressure differential caused by air moving more quickly over the underside of the stabilisers.
Note: In this post, g is used as little-g, the acceleration due to gravity on the surface of Earth, while g is the SI unit gram. This is not quite standard notation; they should both be represented by the same symbol, which is just plain confusing.
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Damn dude.
They used weight to describe a force, which puts them lightyears worth of miles ahead of every other tech-writer that makes it into the popular press.
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AFAIK downforce is a very common term in F1 racing, which was mentioned early and often in TFA. On this planet the Greenbird weighs about 600kg. At any speed.
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The only use for that definition I've had is in high school physics exams.
The more useful definition is weight = "apparent weight".
Where weight = the actual force the object would exert on the surface it's on.
And that is not m * g.
It's m * g + downforce - bouyancy - force due to the earth spinning, and all sorts of other stuff.
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Parent post almost has it right. And is close enough for nearly any high school or undergraduate work.
There is a difference between weight and mass. Mass is intrinsic to the object being measured; weight has to do with the forces acting upon the object, which is often just the force of gravity, but sometimes involves other forces. And that's the part that parent post misses. Weight has always been a matter of human perception, and most especially of the human capacity to imagine a perception that has not
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Funny, but doesn't the mass decrease due to relativistic effects?
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Nevermind!
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(obligatory spaceballs references)
It depends - did they go plaid yet?
I'm still combing the desert looking for the answer to that one, and I ain't found shit yet!
That will be answered in Spaceballs: The Lost Sequel - The Search For More Weight.
Just use the schwartz to get this statue off my PAW!!!! I don't give a shit about mass, all I know is it weights a fr****ing ton!!!
(closing scene) Related? To spaceballs? Oh shit, there goes the n
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Right - weight is the effect of gravity on an object of a specific mass. The effect of gravity doesn't suddenly change at speed. The vehicle dos NOT weigh more - gravity's effect on it is constant. What changes is the aerodynamic down-thrust. That doesn't change the vehicle's weight, just as an airplane doesn't suddenly weigh less than nothing when it takes off ... gravity still has the same effect on its mass.
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The downward force on the surface it is sitting has increased, which is the point they are trying to get across.
Stop being a pedantic ass.
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Stop being an anonymous coward. Gee, that worked well, didn't it?
Look, it's very simple - for decades, race cars have used wings to generate downforce. Never have they said that it increases their vehicle's weight - to the contrary, they make it clear that it is because the vehicle is so light that they have to counteract the possibility of the vehicle going airborn
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So, what physics allows a vehicle to increase in weight by 67% when it's going 120mph? Do the individual atoms become more dense, or do they just multiply out of the quantum foam? Or do the lighter elements transmute to lead, making the vehicle denser? Somehow, I don't think the vehicle gets denser, and I don't think that the atoms do an amoeba fission thing - and then miraculously reverse the process when the vehicle slows down. Or does the rapid pa
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Water record broken too (Score:1)
Must have been a windy day on planet Earth!
http://www.sail-world.com/USA/New-World-Speed-Record---Macquarie-Innovation-breaks-50--hits-54-knots/55222 [sail-world.com]
--jmike
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It is only a matter of time before the record is broken again, both for Class C (as the links says, probably soon to be held by this boat) and for overall, currently held by a kiteboarder. The difference between what happens on water and on land is really dramatic. The fastest boats are remarkably slower than the fastest cars.
BTW, it wasn't *particularly* windy during the record breaking attempts. Too much wind usually means gusty conditions and overpowering. What they needed was the right wind direction re
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I'm not a physicist, so there's a lot I don't understand. For something to go over 100mph powered only by wind, wouln't the wind itself have to be over 100mph as well?
How do you go faster than the force that is propelling you?
The Ice Schooner (Score:3, Interesting)
This craft reminds me of the early Michael Moorcock SF story The Ice Schooner [geocities.com]:
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Much revised? What, are there multiple versions of the book?
And FWIW, whoever wrote that isn't too clued into the eternal champion theme - among other things, New York was clearly Tanelorn, definitely making The Ice Schooner yet another version of the eternal champion theme.
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If you click the link, you see that it was indeed revised.
And I think their description was apt. TIS is indeed not that closely linked to the Eternal Champion cycle, except in some packaging, as that review says. I read most of all the other incarnation books (including Jerry Cornelius), and I agree with that description.
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Thanks for offering me conclusive evidence that a nice chat about books we both liked is not going to happen in this thread.
Goodbye.
Recap of event (Score:2)
"Richaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard!"
wow; impressive (Score:4, Interesting)
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Should be interesting to see how it goes on ice. Watch out, IceMice. The publici
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as to the vertical wind turbines, I have always been amazed that they those did not catch on in the city. Struck me as the way to go for places like Chicago (not called the windy city for no reason) or Milwaukee (Summer fest is one of the best things about that town).
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"Struck me as the way to go for places like Chicago (not called the windy city for no reason)"
Actually, Chicago got the moniker "the windy city" not for the weather. It was to describe its politics.
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Windy city (Score:2)
Actually there is some debate on that one. While it could refer to the weather it is just as likely due to the politicians (all the hot air). I will refer you to wikipedia.
120 mph is nothing (Score:2)
I had an Arrow class iceboat and regularly got over 70 mph. These speeds are pedestrian for iceboats. The DN class and Arrow class really don't take aerodynamics very far having completely open cockpits. Now the Skeeter class takes aerodynamics quite seriously having an almost enclosed cockpit and many other aerodynamic features. Its drag is quite low.
Actually, an iceboat was clocked at 143 mph and this was many years ago. The potential for impressive speeds on ice is pretty big.
For more information go
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Yes the sport has a reputation for some spectacular accidents. Where I sailed, on Lake St. Claire (Michigan), there was this BIG old iceboat called "Buckaroo". It was so big that it got away with jumping small cracks in the ice. (A sure recipe for disaster.) The end for it was the skipper got complacent and tried to jump a crack that was too large. The result was predictable... 60 foot iceboat to matchsticks in one step. There were 4 people on it at the time and although there were no fatalities, the
Here's the math question.. (Score:4, Insightful)
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I also wonder if a rigid wing would work well on smaller sailboats. It might help more people use sail for travel where they now use motor launches. I don't think it's going to take over waterskiing any time soon, but that would be cool too.
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A rigid wing would be lethal in a harbor, as you can't take it down easily, and if the wind changed, suddenly you have a boat that is attempting to move and a boom swinging about.
Another large bonus of a fabric sail is that it will flap when my sail isn't set correctly or when I am sailing to much into the wind. A rigid sail wouldn't.
Fabric is lighter, and I assure you, the last thing you want is a lot of weight high up. It makes the boat a lot more likely to roll, and you already have a large surface area
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A rigid wing would be lethal in a harbor, as you can't take it down easily, and if the wind changed, suddenly you have a boat that is attempting to move and a boom swinging about.
You're assuming that it can't be opened to let wind through or something.
Another large bonus of a fabric sail is that it will flap when my sail isn't set correctly or when I am sailing to much into the wind. A rigid sail wouldn't.
But strain gauges can let you know what's going on.
Fabric is lighter, and I assure you, the last thing you want is a lot of weight high up. It makes the boat a lot more likely to roll, and you already have a large surface area that the wind can push.
I hear you on the weight thing, I suppose it would only work for heavily keeled vessels (for their size anyway.)
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You're assuming that it can't be opened to let wind through or something.
You still have a large flat object longer than the width of the boat that will always orientate itself to the wind. A huge weather vane in effect. Take a look at a harbor and see how boats are tied up. Right next to each other. You are not going to make many friends if you keep smashing the adjacent boats shroud.
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A rigid wing would be lethal in a harbor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbosail [wikipedia.org]
The Cousteau folks seem to have survived it.
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Question is: If it takes a 40 foot high wing to move a 1 ton car, how big of a wing would you need to move a 50,000 ton container ship?
I think a better question is: Why do you need to move a ship that big on sail power alone? While it would be cool to do so, using wind power in conjunction with conventional engines improves efficiency reducing fuel consumption between 10 and 35 percent [cnet.com], which is a good start.
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A 160-square meter kite sail is expected to reduce the diesel consumption of a 10,000-tonne ship by 20%.
http://www.reuters.com/article/inDepthNews/idUSL1548100520071217?sp=true [reuters.com]
Simple math answer (Score:2)
The exact same size of wing...
After all, you said nothing about the speed. Wait long enough and the ship itself will move in the wind.
Sailing faster than the wind (Score:5, Interesting)
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he also shows a nice theoretical construction that allows one to accelerate to any speedy (assuming that the universe is Newtonian).
Even to a Gonzales?
Two runs? (Score:5, Funny)
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No, I think you're the one who missed it.
In all other "land speed record" runs, the driver is required to make 2 runs on the course, in opposite directions, typically within a 1-hour span. This is to negate any "wind at your back" assist which would taint the results unfairly.
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On most sailboats (and this car is an extension of the principle), the fastest point of sail is a beam reach--directly crosswind. Running the course in the opposite direction would just mean that the crosswind is from the other direction; there would be no advantage.
Sailing downwind can't produce a speed greater than the wind speed. Unless he had a 125mph wind, he wasn't operating downwind.
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Obligatory comment... (Score:1)
zing!
Relative Speed (Score:1)
There's still some debate as to whether traveling on ice or land will be faster.
I think if it weighs a ton, I could probably answer this question...
Video (Score:2)
So Slashdot (Score:2)
Most of Slashdot is discussing the relativistic merits of the added mass !!!
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30-40mph with gusts later in the day higher.
though on land it is easier. on water the record is about 64mph in 24mph wind.
okay so i am a sailing geek. I also say this yesterday.
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Yeah, at first I thought it said Windows powered, guess I come to slashdot expecting news for nerds so my brain saw "win" and filled in the rest.
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And in Ontario, you'd be able to get your licence suspended for a week, and car impounded, all without burning a drop of gasoline.
Yet, if you pay no attention, drift 10 feet out of your lane, roll your vehicle, and kill two people, you can legally drive away from the accident scene.
Go figure......
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What, like land speed records for bigwheels?
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The CHP clocked me @ 47mph on a Big Wheel. It was downhill, however, and definitely not the record. One of my friends was clocked @ 55 going down Corral Hollow road towards Carnegie. The guy in the car couldn't keep up once they got into the twisties. Its a miracle that we survived our childhoods.
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Yeah, because a supersonic land-sailing car is realistic.
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The point is that yes sure we can do a lot of things, but when you put limits in place it precludes certain results. You still can't break 60mph or reach the moon if the only vehicle you allow is a horse..