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The Fastest Things in the Universe (Entirely According to Me)

2021-10-11 · list · Hank · 4:00 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Science & nature · mode: Curiosity & trivia · tags: calendar ritual, self promotion

Asking what the fastest thing is, Hank lists his own answers: falling humans at terminal velocity, Apollo 10's crew as the fastest people, the Parker Solar Probe and possibly a manhole cover blasted by a nuclear test as the fastest made objects, and blazar plasma jets near light speed, before noting that, with time relative, speed kind of doesn't exist.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Pizzamas is going fast; is light the fastest thing, and is light a thing?

  • ★★ Hank likes seemingly simple questions such as what the fastest thing is: the answer seems to be light, but light is not matter and has no mass, so is it a thing? — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank says particles can sometimes go faster than light, as long as the light is not traveling through a vacuum. — 00:00:20
  • ★ Hank says many people could make very different videos with this title; this is his list of the top four or six fastest things. — 00:00:30 · also in: Fine, I'll take the bait.

00:00:49 — Fastest humans: falling at terminal velocity, early cars, the Apollo 10 crew

  • ★★★ For a long time the fastest person was not a runner or rider but someone falling from great height: a human body's terminal velocity in our atmosphere is 120 miles per hour, reachable falling off waterfalls. — 00:00:49
  • ★★ Hank says that speed was not exceeded until the 1900s, probably in the 1910s or 1920s by cars, though early car speeds were poorly measured; people definitely exceeded it by the 1920s. (hedged) — 00:01:00
  • ★★★ By the 1960s people went from 120 to over 24,000 miles per hour; the record, set by Tom Stafford, John Young and Eugene Cernan returning from the Moon on Apollo 10, is unbeaten. — 00:01:18

00:01:47 — Lower orbits are faster; probes near the Sun

  • ★★ Hank guesses Apollo 10 went faster home than any other Apollo mission because of orbital mechanics, not because the crew was in a hurry. (hedged) — 00:01:47
  • ★★ Hank says humans are not on the way to beating that record and probably won't until we head to Mars. (hedged) — 00:01:52 · Mars
  • ★★ Lower orbits are faster: Mercury orbits the Sun faster than Venus, Venus than Earth, Earth than Mars, so a probe close to the Sun goes very fast. — 00:01:58 · Earth, Mars

00:02:16 — Fastest made objects: the Parker Solar Probe and the nuclear-test manhole cover

  • ★★★ This year (2021) the Parker Solar Probe broke its own record for the fastest a human-made object has gone, around 330,000 miles per hour. — 00:02:16
  • ★★ Hank says, as in his earlier Wheezy Waiter paternity-leave video, the fastest human-made object might be a manhole cover capping an underground nuclear test whose shock vented improperly. (hedged) — 00:02:30 · Craig Benzine
  • ★★★ The cover appeared in one frame of a high-speed film, letting scientists calculate it was going at least 125,000 miles per hour, with no maximum known. — 00:02:45
  • ★ The manhole cover may have been blasted into space or vaporized in the atmosphere; either way it did not fall back to Earth. (hedged) — 00:03:00 · Earth

00:03:15 — Fastest stuff with mass: blazar plasma jets; time is relative, so speed kind of doesn't exist

  • ★★★ Not counting light in a vacuum, the fastest things with mass are plasma jets from active galactic nuclei, blazars, some globs as big as Jupiter, at over 99% of light speed; Hank has no idea why. — 00:03:15
  • ★★ Hank closes that speed is a function of distance and time, and time is relative, so speed itself kind of doesn't exist. — 00:03:36

00:03:44 — Pizzamas plug, sign-off and 'it's me'

  • ★★ Hank says Pizzamas is going fast: pizzamas.com has products available now that will never be available after this week (week of 11 October 2021). — 00:03:44 · Pizzamas
  • ★ After signing off, Hank declares himself the fastest thing in the world. (joke) — 00:03:55

In the description and comments

  • ★ The description says the fastest thing in the universe might actually be the viewer, depending on frame of reference. (hedged) — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: speed of light

Also: People: Craig Benzine · Eugene Cernan · John Young · Thomas P. Stafford

Projects: Pizzamas

Concepts: active galactic nucleus · black hole · blazar · nuclear weapon · terminal velocity · theory of relativity

Places: Earth · Jupiter · Mars · Mercury · Moon · Sun (star) · Venus

Events: Apollo 10

Products: Parker Solar Probe

Later videos replying to this one

  • 2021-10-12 · Fine, I'll take the bait. (John) — answers — “I think a bunch of different people could have this same title for a video and make very different videos. All right, challenge accepted.” (00:00:00)

Part of an exchange of 3 videos, 2021-10-11 – 2021-10-13.