Word: mph
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...supplying the talk). Or maybe he didn't care much about delineating heroes and villains. Perhaps he wanted to set up an old-fashioned competition: stunt driver vs. stunt girl. Nonetheless, Zoe is asking for it. If you strap yourself to the hood of a car going 120 mph, don't be surprised if you and your friends get in trouble, with or without the menace of a Stuntman Mike. And if you're a filmmaker who wants to build sympathy for your heroines, don't make them as bat-poop crazy as the villain. Also, don't give...
...year, on vacation, and then use it mainly to go shopping. And though I recall with pleasure the summer day I drove my wife and film critic David Thomson through Death Valley in a 1990 Coupe de Ville with a temperature indicator on the dashboard - we hit 108 mph when the air outside was 108 degrees - my usual feeling behind the wheel is the apprehension that I'll be sideswiped by demon-driving jerks like the ones in Death Proof. When Zoe's and Mike's cars go barreling onto a highway, forcing the other drivers to go swerving...
...Right now, however, the maglev only travels the length of the 11-mile test track at Yamanashi, and as I discovered, that's a very, very quick ride. The train begins moving on wheels; the levitation doesn't kick in until the cars reach 81 mph. After a bump and release, as you would feel aboard a plane leaving the runway, it's pure, even, rapid acceleration to 310 mph. The only clue to the sheer speed is the tunnel lights outside: Standing 40 feet apart, they seem to stretch and blend until they appear as a single white stripe...
...miles per person. And 49 billion of those miles were covered by the shinkansen, the super-fast bullet trains that make intercity travel as simple as a subway hop. If all you've ever known is the slow torture of Amtrak, you won't believe trains that reach 170 mph, depart for major cities at least six times an hour, and measure punctuality in tenths of seconds. Still, the Japanese want to go faster...
...levitate 10 cm above the bottom of the track - "maglev" is short for magnetic levitation. The magnets also propel the train forward very, very quickly, in part because air creates less friction than rail. The Yamanashi test maglev set a world speed record for trains in 2003 at 361 mph, and it cruises at 310 mph...