Usain Bolt is (really really really)FAST, but is he faster than a car???

mr.wankel

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Usain Bolt just did 100m in 9.58 seconds!!! :blink:

9.58!! 9.58!! 9.58!!
AMAZING!!!

But... Can a car beat that???
Someone should investigate...
Top Gear, I'm looking at you...
 
Wrong section.

I posted that in 9.57 seconds.
 
Ultimately a man can never beat a car. He can beat cars slower than him, but that's it.

That was a pretty terrible miss too, random thoughts is right down there.
 
Engage middle school maths?

Let's take an average sports car, 0-100kph in 5 seconds, that's 36 meters per second or 100 meters in about 3 seconds. If you ignore the distance covered while getting to 100kph and ignore that it's still accelerating after getting to 100kph it will do 100 meters in 8 seconds.

Take a mad car? Lots quicker.
Do the real maths and consider both ignored improvements? Lots quicker.

Assuming constant acceleration (7m/s? for 35m/s in 5s) it'll cover 100m in 5.3 seconds... if you take a Veyron (2.5s for 100kph, 14m/s?) you'll do 100m in 3.7s.
 
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Damn you beat me to it ;) Well explained though. (And a Veyron will do a quarter mile in 10.2 seconds so these figures are very realistic)
 
Again assuming constant acceleration and breaking as well as zero delays, a Veyron could floor it for 25m, brake for 25m, stop, do the same thing again, and still be 2 seconds faster than Mr Bolt.
 
Thanks narf that was very well explained.
So all you need is some proper power!
Fastest Man in the World?? Don't think so...

PS: Sorry for posting in the wrong section.
I'm new here and I wasn't really paying attention.
It won't happen again! (I hope...)
 
An amazing feat, no doubt.

And I hate to be negative after a spectacle like that (the fastest 100m race ever 3 guys under 9,84). But I just simly cannot believe that these times can be achieved "cleanly"... So many guys who have gone under 9,9 have been caught.
 
So all you need is some proper power!

Well, not even proper power is needed. To do 100m in 9.5s from a standing start with constant acceleration all you need is 2.2m/s?, which works out to over 16s for 0-100kph.
Even my lowly Fox can do that...


Oh yeah, just thought about reality ... real cars should actually do better, because they perform better than the assumed constant acceleration - at first (in first ;)) they accelerate better, so using the average as a constant actually slows them down a bit overall..

/math
 
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A little OT, but how come people that actually advance the human race by discovering new technologies / medicine and so on, and generally inventing things that make our lives more pleasant usually get so little credit for it while someone who can just run really fast seems to get so many people excited? I understand that people need to be entertained, sometimes it just seems a little out of proportion :(
 
I might be open for correction here, but, He was running at 37.6kph as he crossed the line.
In human terms amazing, for a car pretty boring.

Edit: around 23mph in old money. :D
 
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Ultimately a man can never beat a car.

...unless it's Tuesday morning rush hour in London, and they're driving/running the London Marathon course. :D

acmuir_londonmarathon.jpg
 
I might be open for correction here, but, He was running at 37.6kph as he crossed the line.

You may be confusing momentary speed when crossing the line with the average speed... on average he did 37.58, considering it takes them about half the race to get up to their top speed I'd guess his momentary speed - though lower than top speed - should be considerably higher than the average.
 
Physics? My brain is too dead for physics. Let me know when you have a box around the answer.
 
TONIGHT, ON TOP GEAR...

I DRIVE THE NEW CHEVROLET CAMARO, IN A STRAIGHT LINE.
JAMES MAY AND RICHARD HAMMOND INVESTIGATE, IS IT BETTER TO OWN A G-WIZ OR BE KICKED IN THE VEGETABLES REPEATEDLY?
AND
IS USAIN BOLT QUICKER THAN A REASONABLY PRICED CAR?
 
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