Maximum Velocity
A compendium of the fastest things the world has to offer, and a celebration of the technological breakthroughs that feed the rush
Both man and machine are approaching the future at an ever-accelerating clip. Almost every year, our vehicles break speed records. This past fall, the X-43A scramjet-powered aircraft reached a speed of nearly Mach 10, beating a record of Mach 6.8 set only six months before. Todayâs fastest supercomputer, IBMâs Blue Gene, is about 450,000 times as speedy as the ruling machine of 30 years ago and twice as fleet as the fastest machine of just one year ago. More at Popular Science
