Slowest – Continental Drift
0.0000000003m/s
The average relative speed of continental drift is about 10mm per year.
At one time all the current continents were joined together in one supercontinent called Pangaea but over Earth’s 4.5 billion year history this was broken apart into the continents we know today.
Fastest – The Speed of Light
299,792,458m/s
Light is so fast that it wasn’t until 1926 and the work of A.A. Michelson that we had a good idea of just how fast it is. Light could travel the distance from London to Sydney (13477 miles) and back seven times in one second.
Albert Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity shows that the speed of light in a vacuum is the absolute fastest it is possible to travel. No matter how much energy you have, no matter how big an engine you create, no matter where you are, it simply isn’t possible: if the Universe really is full of aliens then it’s going to be a very, very long time before we meet.
The Fastest Animal – The Cheetah
30m/s
The Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) can accelerate from 0 to 70mph in under three seconds, faster than most supercars (though not the Ultima GTR or the Bugatti Veyron) and run at 65mph for short bursts upto 500 metres at a time.
The Fastest Aeroplane – The SR-71 Blackbird
980m/s
Aside from being absolutely beautiful the SR-71 Blackbird has also held the flight airspeed record of 2188mph since 1976.
The Fastest Man-made Object – Helios 2 Probe
70,200m/s
In 1976 the Helios 2 probe swung past the Sun at a distance of 45 billion metres; reaching a speed of over 70,000 metres per second, 0.02% of the speed of light.
How can you PROVE that light is the fastest thing possible?
Well you can’t PROVE anything, except in mathematics. However, you can support the hypothesis that light is the fastest possible thing by showing that the Special Theory of Relativity is correct which so far evidence suggests it is.
isnt the cheetah only the fastest land animal…
a hawk or kestral or some bird is faster isnt it?
The problem with a kestrel (which does go pretty fast) is that it’s really just falling, not actually powering itself.
Will there be a point at which humans will no longer be able to run quicker than the world record without drugs? (ie. faster than 9.74s?)
I hope so, but I think there is definitely a point at which we simply can’t improve. Then again I want to see the “on drugs” Olympics – I want to see a guy run the 100m in four seconds!
I’m all for the trans-humanist Olympics (so long as they are kept seperate, for integrity’s sake)