But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro.
—Daniel 12:4
5940 Progressive Speeds Statistics
Daniel had doubtless never traveled faster than on horseback. And probably his most common speed was his walking pace. In fact, this was the speed of all men until about mid-19th century.
With the invention of steam engines and electric power, men were sent down roads and rivers at speeds of 5 to 19 miles per hour. Then Henry Ford invented the internal combustion engine and speeds to 25, 35, even 70 miles per hour were posted.
Today, cars can travel at a maximum of 600 mph, planes 2,000, and spaceships 24,000.
—Tim LaHaye
5941 Around-The-World Speeds
A jet can fly around the world in 24 hours. A spacecraft can orbit the world in 80 minutes. And in less than one second, a radio message can reach the ends of the earth.
And if “anti-gravity” can be discovered, man will be traveling at the speed of light, or 7½ times around the world per second.
5942 Jet Plane And Bullet
To show how fast the newest Air Force fighter planes can fly, the general manager of a company making one of the planes says: “If the planes were fired at by a 16-inch naval gun, and if the pilot should happen to see the shell, he could avoid it, swing his plane alongside to inspect it, and then fly away from it, going in the same direction as the shell.”
—Akron Beacon Journal
5943 Fastest Aircraft
The world’s fastest jet aircraft is the Lockheed SR-71 which is capable of attaining a speed of 2,200 mph.
The fastest Soviet jet aircraft in service is the MIG 25 (codename: “Foxbat”) with a speed of 2,110 mph.
5944 More Fast Planes
In 1974, a US Air Force SR-71 spy plane flew from New York to London—faster than a speeding bullet—in one hour, 56 minutes, setting a record. This equaled an average ground speed of 1,817 mph.
The French supersonic Concorde flies at twice the speed of sound, which is 1,400 mph. It cruises at 10 miles above the earth.
5945 “That Row Of Cathedrals”
Now that a speed of a thousand miles per hour for passenger- carrying stratoliners may soon be a possibility, we may presently anticipate a dialogue such as this:
“What was that row of cathedrals we just passed over?”
“That wasn’t a row of cathedrals. That was the Empire State Building, the Taj Mahal, Westminster Abbey and the Kremlin!”
5946 First U.S. Auto Race
America’s first auto race was a far cry from the Indy 500.
Held on Thanksgiving Day in 1895 on a 54-mile course from Chicago to Evanston, Illinois, and back, the event was won with an average speed of 5.2 miles per hour! The winner, Charles Duryea, sputtered across the finish line for the $2,000 prize in the 750- pound “Duryea Motor Wagon” which he had designed and built.
Winner’s time for the 54-mile course: 10 hours and 23 minutes!
At the Indy 500 today, cars go around the 2.5-mile course about 200 times, averaging over 160 mph. Cars must be equipped with wings to keep them down.
5947 Land Speed Record
The highest speed ever attained on land by man is 650 mph. The Blue Flame driven over Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, in 1970, momentarily attained that speed. It averaged 631 mph over the measured mile—still the winner.
The Paris-based Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), which oversees all land speed-record attempts, says that any vehicle that rides on wheels, stays on the ground, and is steered by a driver on board can try for the record. It can be powered by a piston engine, a jet engine, a rocket engine, or a rubber band. Record attempts must be conducted along a measured mile. Two runs must be within an hour of each other, in opposite directions, to cancel the impact of wind and slope. The average of the two speeds becomes the official result.
5948 Fastest Car And Bullet
A car moving at the speed of sound will take five seconds to hurdle down the mile course. If a standard bullet was fired from a .22 rifle at the instant the car started, the car would handily beat the bullet to the other end.
5949 Champion Typist
Miss Nicole Hubert of Paris has been declared the champion stenotypist of the world for typing at a speed of two hundred sixty faultless words per minute. She was among dozens of young women competing in the event held by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
5950 Fastest Camera Shutter
Sometime ago, the Army announced the development of a “rapid” new camera shutter that takes photographs in one five-billionth of a second. The shutter was designed for scientific research studies of high-speed shock waves, explosions and certain types of nuclear reactions. The secret of this camera’s quick work is a hermetically-sealed chemical-type shutter triggered electronically.
5951 Super-Fast Cameras
A motion picture camera has been developed which operates at a speed of 5 million frames per second, compared to the 64-frames-per-second for an average slow-motion camera.
With such equipment, an instantaneous event can be stretched into a film lasting several hours.
A super-fast X-ray camera has been developed with the power and speed to visualize a bullet as it passes through the barrel of a revolver.
Even the “tracks” of cosmic rays passing through the atmosphere at speeds close to the velocity of light can now be photographed and thereby held for the human eye to witness.
—Christianity Today
5952 An “Ancient” Law
In 1896, England still had a law prohibiting any power-driven vehicle from traveling over four miles an hour on the public highways. Furthermore, it required that such a vehicle should be preceded by a man bearing a red flag. The crowd was wrong once more!
5953 “Are Railroads Practical?”
Pressing on in face of discouragement is also illustrated in the refusal of an Ohio school board in 1829 to permit a debate in the schoolhouse on the question, “Are Railroads Practical?” Their explanation, “If God had designed that His intelligent creatures should travel at the frightful speed of 15 miles an hour by steam, He would have foretold it by His prophets.”
—James Hastings
See also: Hastiness ; Travel.