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A quick look at some
fast things in life

Superman, it is alleged, could fly faster than a speeding bullet. Which is a handy skill to have if someone is shooting bullets at you. But why did "faster than a speeding bullet" become the threshold that all things speedy are measured against? Why not something more practical like "faster than a speeding pit bull that got out of your neighbor's yard"? Or "faster than a speeding big drunk guy with a stick"?

Speed is relative. And if your relative is Alexander Popov, that's really speedy. The Russian Popov, who has feet like garbage can lids, swam the fastest 50-meter freestyle in history at the 2000 Olympics: 21.64 seconds.

I know that because Popular Science magazine recently decided to take a look at the speed of things in the world. It's a quick read. In its "compendium of the fastest things the world has to offer," PopSci lists the Pacific Plate as the world's fastest tectonic plate. The plate stretches from California to Japan and zips along at 4 inches a year. For a huge slab of the earth's crust, that's pretty fast.

Another speedy geographical feature is the Qori Kalis glacier in the Peruvian Andes, receding (melting) at a nonglacial rate of 700 feet a year. At that rate it will be gone in 50 years, scientists believe. If the world's mountain glaciers melt completely, sea levels will rise and displace 100 million people. So, "faster than a melting glacier" might be a little more meaningful than "faster than a speeding bullet."

THERE ARE A lot of things we think are fast that really aren't. A jackrabbit, for instance, whips along at 45 miles an hour. That might seem pretty fast until you find out that a cheetah can clock 79 miles per hour. A jackrabbit wouldn't only lose a race against a cheetah, he'd end up as an entree at the post-race party.

The Antilocapra Americana, with a top seed of 86.5 miles per hour, could catch a cheetah, but I'm not sure he'd want to.

Antilocapra Americana means "antelope goat," but the Antilocapra Americana is neither a goat nor an antelope. It's commonly called a pronghorn and is the relative of some prehistorical fast thingy. The pronghorn is no doubt still around today because it has the ability to get out of Dodge. And quick. It is called the fastest animal in the Western Hemisphere. But not to its face. You generally have to yell that information at it as it disappears over a ridge at Mach 1.

Actually, pronghorns can't go Mach 1. If they did, they'd be breaking the sound barrier. The sound barrier was broken by test pilot Chuck Yeager in 1947, and, as far as I know, it has never been repaired. Yeager was the first person to go faster than the speed of sound, and luckily, he had a jet airplane to do it in. Breaking the sound barrier today is no big deal. I did it yesterday in my F-150 pickup truck. Then again, it might have just backfired.

POPULAR SCIENCE points out that the fastest plane today is the X-43A scramjet-powered aircraft that recently nearly reached Mach 10. That's more than 7,000 miles per hour. There was no pilot on board because at that speed, he (or she) would be nothing but a jelly blob stuck to the backrest.

Other fast things in the world include bamboo, that grows up to 3 feet a day, 30 percent faster than any other plant. I have bamboo in my back yard that might be setting speed-growing records. One stalk grew 4 feet while I was changing line on my weed eater.

For the record, a speeding bullet goes about 1,100 miles an hour. If one is headed in your direction, as your columnist, I advise you not to try to outrun it.