Sunday, June 16, 2019

How a Manhole Cover Became the Fastest Manmade Object Ever



Half as Interesting tries to answer the question, "What is the fastest manmade object?" As you can figure, first they have to clarify the parameters of the question, defining the terms and such. But that leads us to a truly bizarre story of an experiment that is still somewhat classified. I really want to know if we have a 1957 manhole cover orbiting the earth.

2 comments:

  1. The "six times the earth's escape velocity" seems NOT to be the result of a calculation. See http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Brownlee.html (as referenced from https://io9.gizmodo.com/no-a-nuclear-explosion-did-not-launch-a-manhole-cover-1715340946).

    Nice story (like the Darwin Award story of the guy in Arizona who attached a JATO unit to his car), but "the facts never can catch up with the legend".

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  2. Fascinating. Thanks, Snow Man!

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