Maximum Velocity

37.6 mph


Taipei 101: World’s fastest elevator

Two 24-passenger cars zip at a rate of up to 55 feet a second up Taiwan’s new 1,667-foot Taipei 101 tower. Spoilers that control noise levels, tuned weights that damp vibrations, and computer-controlled air pressure make
the quarter-mile, 39-second trip bearable.


105.6 mph


The Fetish: World’s fastest production electric car

Released last September from Monaco-based Venturi Automobiles, the low-slung Fetish is the world’s first commercially available electric-powered sports coupe. The two-seater has an air-cooled 180-kilowatt engine that generates the equivalent of 300 horsepower and revs instantly to 14,000 rpm, allowing the car to accelerate from 0 to 60 in 4.5
seconds, performance that trumps a Porsche Boxster.
Although electric-powered research cars have traveled faster—Ohio State University’s student-designed Buckeye Bullet set a new electric land-speed record of 314.96 mph last October —the Fetish is built for everyday driving. The car uses the latest generation of lithium-ion batteries to power it for more than 200 miles on a single charge. The price tag: $660,000.


11.6 mph


Paula Radcliffe: World’s fastest female marathon runner

In 2002, English track star Paula Radcliffe won the Chicago Marathon with a world-record-breaking time of two hours, 17 minutes and 18 seconds. Then, less than a year later, she ran the 2003 Flora London Marathon and finished in 2:15:25—beating her own record by nearly two minutes and slicing an unprecedented three minutes off her closest competitor.


In a sport where speed improvements are marked in seconds, not minutes, Radcliffe redefines the rate of human performance gains. Prior to her record-smashing run, it had taken 16 years for women to knock a minute and 20 seconds off the world record.


Radcliffe, 31, combines extreme training with breakthrough technology. Most of her practice sessions are logged at altitude near Font Romeu in the French Pyrenees or in Flagstaff, Arizona, where running in the thin alpine air boosts the oxygen-transporting red blood cells that are crucial to endurance. And two years ago, she began working with Nike engineers to design a marathon shoe. In Nike’s Beaverton, Oregon, design lab, she ran on a specialized treadmill coupled with high-speed 3-D cameras that analyze foot strike, pressure and alignment. The result, the 6.8-ounce Zoom, is also available to mortals ($85).




81 mph


Sam Whittingham: World’s fastest self-propelled man

The self-propelled land-speed record was set in October 2002, when Canadian Sam Whittingham reached 81 mph inside a bullet-shaped recumbent bicycle on a flat course in Battle Mountain, Nevada. Whittingham’s victory was attributed to his low body weight and particularly low-riding bike.


World’s Fastest Computer Virus
MyDoom surfaced on January 26, 2004, racing across the Internet at a rate of up to 12,000 computers an hour and striking more than 500,000 machines within a week. The virus e-mailed itself to addresses stored on the user’s machine and created a “back door” on the user’s hard drive, which allowed its unidentified creators to remotely broadcast spam over the Internet. When MyDoom peaked three days after its initial outbreak, one of every 10 e-mails circulating on the Internet carried the virus—nearly twice as many as had been affected by any previous computer bug.