Comments

Could that possibly really be Dr. Tyson? If so, wow. I love your Colbert visits. I feel honored to be called a curmudgeon by you, but I think you misread my intent. I applaud the original article as well, it is one of the commenters (Thorn) to whom I was replying who implied that skidding the car would stop it faster than anti-lock brakes. This is why I went on my Kinetic versus Static friction screed. I do have a problem with the assertion that the sum of your gym workouts is enough to stop you, however. The implication is that you can do all of them at once and that you have something to push against. If you exherted that much force straight down you would fly off the ground. You need a backboard for your bech press, you need the isometric pressure to squeeze the scale. You need the ground and a back rest to push back on your leg press. A 120lb Kirk only has gravity to work with. Then again, it's Kirk. I'm sure his belt buckle added extra stopping power due to 'testicular mass.' With all that said, here's another piece... the article calculates a 78 m/s2 decleration. Assuming hands above his head sliding feet first, this would be the same type of additional downward force that fighter pilots feel. The blood would pool in his legs. The translation is about 8Gs. Trained fighter pilots WITH pressurized flight suits blackout at around 7Gs. It would probablty also rip his arms off (900lbs?), but I've overstayed my welocome here already so I won't go into that. Michael van Huystee Physics Major and born skeptic.