Daytona International Speedway
Motor-racing circuit at Daytona Beach, Florida, USA, home of the Daytona 500.
At a glance
| Source | Author | Role | In one line |
|---|---|---|---|
| How fast could a human accellerate (while staying alive)? | xkcd’s What If? | subject | Its banked turns set the limit for a human-survivable top speed. |
| How fast could a vehicle go around a track - but the racer does not have to survive. | xkcd’s What If? | subject | The 200-lap yardstick for ever-faster, unsurvivable vehicles. |
How fast could a human accellerate (while staying alive)? — xkcd’s What If? (2025)
Source: Original · Readwise highlight
If we limit our vehicle to 4 Gs, its top speed on the turns at Daytona will be about 240 mph.
- Role: subject
- In the video: The What If? video uses the Daytona course as its example track: capping a vehicle at 4 g gives a top speed through the turns of about 240 mph, and the text concludes that human biology limits Daytona finishing times to over an hour.
- Why it matters: The track supplies the numbers for the whole argument, though nothing about the place itself is described.
How fast could a vehicle go around a track - but the racer does not have to survive. — xkcd’s What If? (2025)
Source: Original · Readwise highlight
Human biology limits us to Daytona finishing times over an hour.
- Role: subject
- In the video: The follow-up drops the requirement that the racer survive: starting from the human limit of over an hour for a Daytona-length race, it pushes vehicle speed up to that of the LHC beam, which would finish a Daytona 500 in about two seconds.
- Why it matters: Again the yardstick for a thought experiment rather than a described place.