My commissioning editor said "write me a book about fast stuff that people can read on the john", so I did, but I managed to sneak in some good physics… I set out to look at some of the ways we can work out how fast a salmon leaps out of the water, how fast you fall from the top of a high building, speed records for really slow animals, snail races.
This second edition has been brought up to date, with new material and a good selection of illustrations. It tells you how to tell how fast a whale or a salmon leaps out of the water, how fast you will be going if you jump off the (missing) nose of the Sphinx, or how fast a botfly really flies. (Note that this information appeared in the first edition, pages 17 to 19, but an incompetent reviewer, William B. Palmer, falsely asserted that it was missing.)
It also deals with the challenges of outrunning bears, bulls, buffaloes, elephants, emus, black mambas, crocodiles, and assorted dinosaurs, snail and slug racing, the speed of cockroaches, chameleons’ tongues and spherical horses, the speeds of assorted couriers and messengers, telegraphs, ships, trains, land vehicles, satellites, time travel and travelling faster than light. In short, nearly everything.
Quoting the publisher’s blurb for the first edition, this is a fascinating almanac of facts, statistics and stories about the speed of virtually everything. Speed records; comparative speeds; relative speeds; optimal speeds; fastest speeds; slowest speeds; human, animal, mechanical and natural speeds are gathered together in an easy-to-follow, original design, and explained in engaging text written by a leading popular science writer. The statistical element is supported by fascinating discussions, historical anecdotes and speed trivia both serious and silly.
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This book is written for general readers, and my aim was to take a look at speed, and explore how we find out, and what we know. Here are just a few of the things I played with:
- Learn the real story about the bumblebee that couldn't fly but did.
- How long would a snail take to do a mile?
- If you jump off the Empire State building, will you splatter or pierce the pavement?
- How fast do cockroaches run?
- What really happens when things go faster than the speed of light? (It is possible!)
- What was special about the earliest land speed records?
- How fast is a chameleon's tongue and how does it do it?
- How fast is a volcano?
- What was the world's fastest book?
- How high can a high jumper leap on the Moon?
- Can you play golf on the asteroid Eros?
- Can you outrun the Pamplona bulls?
- Who wanted to spin women in labour at high spped, and why?
- What happens to a dijeridu on a hot day?
- Is it safer to be hit in the eye with a 0.22 bullet or a squash ball?
- What was the world's longest skid in a vehicle?
- Could a human outrun a T. rex?
- Can you survive falling from an aircraft without a parachute? (Yes, three people did.)
Where to get it
An ebook in fullcolour for Kindle; $6, and
A print-on-demandpaperback. $25
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