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My son wants to know what is the fastest thing in The World? Anyone know? Any help appreciated!

52 replies

WideWebWitch · 05/05/2005 16:05

Ds (7) wants to know if anything is faster than thunder and lightning? Anyone know? TIA!

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ninah · 05/05/2005 16:10

a curry-eating cheetah ?

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spacedonkey · 05/05/2005 16:11

the fastest thing in the world is light

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bossykate · 05/05/2005 16:11

um, thunder goes at the speed of sound and lightning goes at the speed of light? so i suppose nothing goes faster than lightning?

calling the mnet scientists on this one...

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stitch · 05/05/2005 16:12

light is the fastest thing at just under three hundred thousand kilometres per second!
nothing else in the physical world approaches that. sound, ie thunder is only 330 metres per secoond. i suppose you could always say theological stuff is faster.
hth

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sweetmonkey · 05/05/2005 16:12

the fastest cake in the world is:

scone

ha ha sorry couldnt resist
LOL

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WideWebWitch · 05/05/2005 20:25

Thank you! He liked the joke too! I knew someone here would know

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emmatmg · 05/05/2005 20:30

WWW, has he got the Guiness book of world records?

I started getting it for xmas when i was about 7 and it's Fab.

Ds1 got it last yr and I spent hours looking up all sorts of stuff.

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Toothache · 05/05/2005 20:37

Light isn't the fastest thing now:

Speed of light broken with basic lab kit
10:03 16 September 2002
NewScientist.com news service
Charles Choi

Electric signals can be transmitted at least four times faster than the speed of light using only basic equipment that would be found in virtually any college science department.

Scientists have sent light signals at faster-than-light speeds over the distances of a few metres for the last two decades - but only with the aid of complicated, expensive equipment. Now physicists at Middle Tennessee State University have broken that speed limit over distances of nearly 120 metres, using off-the-shelf equipment costing just $500.

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WideWebWitch · 05/05/2005 20:39

Thank you toothache, I will show him that tomorrow!

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stitch · 05/05/2005 20:39

wow toohache. but what about relativity? and the whole mass thing? doesnt mass increase exponentially with speed? and thats why only photons can go that fast cos they have no mass? as i remember it, electrons do have a mass, tiny, but they do.
can you do a link to the article please?

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Enid · 05/05/2005 20:40

get him Guiness Book of Records

then you can look up the cat one. Someone trained cats to deliver the post. The experiment failed as the cats proved thoroughly undisciplined.

makes me laugh every time.

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happymerryberries · 05/05/2005 20:41

Sorry but I just don't belive that anything moves faster than light.

WWW tell yor ds that the light moves a lot faster than the sound of the thunder, that is why yu see the flash of light before you hear the thunder.

You can also tell him that supersonic jets go faster than the speed of sound.

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sobernow · 05/05/2005 20:41

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

WideWebWitch · 05/05/2005 20:42

enid, we went to the post box this afternoon and had a loooong conversation about how letters are delivered, he thought they went right down into the ground under the letterbox, bless! God, do I HAVE to buy TGBORecords, it's sooo full of boring stuff, with the odd gem. May do.

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emmatmg · 05/05/2005 20:42

Ya'what?


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Enid · 05/05/2005 20:43

essential for 7 year olds.

sorry it must be done.

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Enid · 05/05/2005 20:43

emma go and have a little rest , footballers wives on in a minute

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WideWebWitch · 05/05/2005 20:43

lol sobernow, Joan Rivers said (I paraphrase) 'you want to see a man move? Tell him you want to get married and have babies - they leave skidmarks' Thanks hmb!

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Toothache · 05/05/2005 20:44

Stitch - Technically it is still light..... just that they have accelerated it faster than the conventional 'speed of light' of 2.87x10 to the power of 6 m/s (if I remember correctly!!).

It's on the New Scientists website. I'll try a link.

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stitch · 05/05/2005 20:44

ever since they cut out yuri gagarin as the first man in space, and subsituted it with the first american in space, i dont believe anything in it

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emmatmg · 05/05/2005 20:45

WWW, it's great.


I still love it, but then before my maternal amnesia set in I used to be a data bank of useless information, so maybe that's why I like it.

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emmatmg · 05/05/2005 20:46

I think I will enid, can feel the easy watching/sleep mode kicking in as I type......ideal for for such pap TV.

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Toothache · 05/05/2005 20:47

Speed of Light Broken

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happymerryberries · 07/05/2005 07:19

This is 3 years old and has not, to my knowledge , been repeated by anyone. If someone had over turned Einstein it would have been published in a journal like 'Nature' and not the new scientist, which while good is realy more a general interest magasine than a scientific journal.

Breaking the speed of light would have turned all of 20th centuary physics on its head!

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Toothache · 07/05/2005 09:40

Good grief Happymerryberries - You seem to have quite a bee in your bonnet about that!!!

Pardon me for finding something interesting that I thought might help WWW son! Clearly you know better than anyone else.... and I must just be thick!

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