StarTalk Radio - #ICYMI - Planet NASCAR, with Neil deGrasse Tyson (Repeat)

Episode Date: August 23, 2018

Is Planet NASCAR governed by the same laws of physics as the rest of Planet Earth? Get ready to roar down the track - left turns only - as hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice re-visit Planet NASCAR alongside our resident astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.Don’t miss an episode of Playing with Science. Please subscribe to our channels on:Apple Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/playing-with-science/id1198280360TuneIn: https://tunein.com/podcasts/Science-Podcasts/Playing-with-Science-p952100/GooglePlay Music: https://play.google.com/music/listen?u=0#/ps/Iimke5bwpoh2nb25swchmw6kzjqSoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/startalk_playing-with-scienceStitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/startalk/playing-with-scienceNOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/planet-nascar-neil-degrasse-tyson-repeat/Photo Credit: Nascarking via Wikimedia Commons Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Nice. And this is Playing With Science. Once again, we enter the Twittersphere through the eyes and mind of Neil deGrasse Tyson as he takes his laser pen and points it at the speeding planet of NASCAR. Yeah, you heard me, NASCAR. Yeah, and did you ever wonder what your very own personal guide to the universe thinks about how

planet NASCAR increased its weight but not its mass? Well, stick around because when you play with fire, you get burned. When you play with science, you get learned. So ring the bell, school is back in, and our supply teacher for this class is none other than Neil deGrasse Tyson. That's right.

The man himself, Neil. Thanks for having me, guys. Welcome. It's a pleasure. Always happy to be on. Okay, let's get started. Do you really mean that? Do you really mean that? No, I'm happy. I'm a servant of the curiosity that you bring to your audience. I'm a servant of that. that you bring to your audience.

I'm a servant of that. Okay, that's a nice way of saying. That was a very nice way of saying, I am not here for you. I am here for your audience. Yes, that's true. That is exactly true. I don't give a rat's ass about your ass. It's your people out there.

All about you people. That's right. Simple as that. Right, Chuck, let's as simple as that. Right, Chuck, let's read the first tweet. Yeah, so this show is all about the tweets that you have put out on Twitter about NASCAR. That was a few years ago. Yeah.

You all dug those up? We did some digging. Yeah, they don't go away, but just let you know. We did some digging. And the cool thing is that what I love is, you know, whenever you tweet, it becomes a thing. Uh-huh. You know, there's like, it's just awesome to see the conversation under the tweet.

Yeah. Where people are arguing back and forth about whatever it is that you said. And then there's the- They display their inner geek. Yes. The inner geek comes out and they fight about it. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

And then there's always one person who's just like, yeah, well, I got my degree in astrophysics from DeVry University and Neil is wrong. Like, that's... So, hey, let's read our first tweet. Can I give this in context? Go ahead, man. If I may. Yeah, because I'm interested.

Do we want that to happen? Because he's only a guest. No, just the context. So if you dug these tweets out, they would have been from 2014. During the run, the weekly airings of Cosmos. On Sunday night in prime time on Fox. Exactly. All right.

Then we learned that of the 13-week run, one of those nights was going to get bumped. No. For NASCAR. Uh-huh. And I said, what? You're going to put NASCAR in for Cosmos? Excuse me? Did you use those exact words?

No. So I said, all right, I am going to fight fire with fire. Okay? And I said, for all those who wanted to see Cosmos but now are watching NASCAR, I'm going to tweet the physics of NASCAR. Oh. And this way, I'm respecting that it's Memorial Day weekend. You got to do the NASCAR thing. Right.

It's Sunday night, family, everybody's home. NASCAR is a huge following. Yes. But I'm going to be pumping this stuff with some physics and that's what i did i don't know why they just didn't have you on cosmos but put a bunch of like branding stickers all over you and just let you do cosmos like pens oil here and you know and let it run around the track right yeah and overalls with a whole load of branding that that would be a collision of NASCAR and astrophysics. That's very cool.

All right. So if we can bring up our first tweet, we'll see what it says. Fabulous. Rubber tires on asphalt grant a maximum speed of about 165 miles per hour in the 24 degree bank turns at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Okay. For me, the interesting part in there is the 24 degree banking. Now, is there a difference or is that a standard for a NASCAR track? Well, I can't speak as an expert of NASCAR, but what I can tell you is in order to do that calculation, you have to know the angle of the bank. And it turns out, within some tracks, the banks are not the same.

The bank angle is not the same on different turns. And it's not the same from track to track. So that's all I can say. I don't know what rules or what regulations are there. But all I can say is, at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the angle of the track is 24 degrees. How do I use that? So as a race driver, how am I going to use that banking to my advantage over my opponent at, say, 160 miles an hour?

Yeah, so it all depends on how, what is the coefficient of friction between your tires and the road? Let's start at zero degrees. So here's a track that has no bank at all. You can imagine that. Sure. No bank.

Just an oval. If there was no friction between your tires and the road, and you try to go into a turn, you just keep going straight. You're not going to turn. All right. Because you're not connected to the road. So you're in a straight line, and you will continue in a straight line unless acted on by an outside force, one of Newton's laws of motion.

Okay. So now watch what happens. Holding aside a coefficient of friction. Right. If you bank the track, what'll happen is the track now turns you. Right. Okay? The track can actually engage a turn even with no coefficient of friction at all.

Mm-hmm. Ooh. Okay? That's cool, okay? Yeah. So now, put in friction, and now you've got grip, you've got a, so you can just take that turn.

Just feel that turn. And you know it and you feel it. So there is one speed, one speed that will maximize how fast you can go depending on the friction between your tires and the road and the angle and, sorry, the radius of curvature. Because if it's banked but it's like really wide, that's not a thing. That's not good. That's not a thing.

So you have to measure the radius of curvature. That's why I had to specify the bank turns at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Right. That's not a general statement about speed and the bank. So how tight is the turn? So there's one speed, and it's 165 miles an hour. So there's one speed and it's 165 miles an hour. At a coefficient of friction of one, generally asphalt and rubber comes in about a coefficient of friction of one.

Okay? That's really good. That's why tires work very well on roads. That's why. It's not an accident. Right. Okay? So what forces are we going to use? They're gripping.

They're basically. They're basically. Yes. They call them toothy. Yes. They're bitingpping. They're basically, they call them toothy. Yes. Now, you can increase the coefficient of friction above one if the tire is kind of gummy. Okay? If the tire is gummy, then it's actually grabbing the ground.

You can get the coefficient of friction slightly above one. Now, here's why that matters. Ready? Okay. Okay. Are we sitting comfortably? Please tell if you're gonna accelerate Something and you say zero to sixty in this America's so we're miles per hour here. Okay, I'm cool with that So yeah, yeah, not a hundred kilometer America Jack as a Brit miles. Oh, yeah, that's hundred kilometer. This is America Jack. As a Brit miles.

Oh, that's right. Cause they invented miles. They go way back with mine. Then want to drop that invention thing on you, but yeah. All right. So, so here's what you have to ask the question. What is the fastest you can accelerate from zero to 60? That's a very sensible question. It is not infinite.

It's just not okay. It depends on your coefficient of friction. At a coefficient of friction of one, where tire's gripping, it's not a gummy tire, it's just a regular coefficient, the fastest you can accelerate is the acceleration of gravity itself. Ooh, which is fixed. Really? Which is fixed.

Exactly. That is the fastest you can accelerate. Wow. And so in other words, if you drop a ball, you look at how quickly it gains speed, and then you have a car with a really powerful engine that wants to accelerate as fast as possible, it goes this way. So they'll go exactly the same speed. Okay? This is an interesting fact about coefficient of friction and acceleration. Excuse me. You can accelerate faster if it has a rocket coming out the back. Right.

But then the ground is irrelevant. Yeah, exactly. Okay? Yeah. It's just pushing it regardless. You've taken away the element of coefficient of friction. You take away the tire road connection. It's just being pushed.

It's not accelerating from the tire. Exactly. It's just being pushed, it's not accelerating. Exactly. Or if it is on a track where you have intersecting teeth on a gear, then you can just rotate that as fast as you want. So what happens if you've got tires that are too soft, engage too much, do you not then impede the speed that you can travel? No, no, no, if you have really gummy tires,

in fact they warm up the tires, and this adds to the grip and everything. And if you look at the tires of dragsters, okay, that you get those, oh my gosh, it's like, you know, get my hand off. It's like chewing gum. And it's why they call them slicks. Right, yeah.

It's full surface contact with the ground, there's no treads in there. And they don't drag race in the rain. No, exactly. For some reason. You want maximum contact. All their tires are bald. They're basically bald.

So another thing is to help out, if you have all your jet exhaust pointing backwards, that gives you a little. I don't know how much, but you might as well have the jet exhaust pointing backwards instead of forwards. Because then you're going against your own generation. Anything you can get. I don't know how much, but you might as well have the jet exhaust pointing backwards instead of forwards. Right. Because then you're going against your own generation of anything you can get.

But sometimes that matters, you know, in races where a fraction of a second comes in. So all I'm saying is you can calculate this. So I did that calculation for Charlotte Motor Speedway. It was 165 miles an hour. Then you watch them in the race. There they are hitting above 200 in the straightaways. Then they go to the turn. And at the peak turn, they're 165 miles an hour every time. You have to watch. They have that little arrow that follows the car around. And it gives you data on the thing.

And so what happened was when I tweeted that, people said, no, these are special cars. And they, you know, what do you know? You're just a physicist. As though somehow physics has nothing to do with this was the implication. But of course, at the peak turn, that's where that speed matters. They have to slow down. By the way, if you go faster than that,

you're not going to stay connected to the road and you hit the embankment. You're flying. And you look at the embankment, there's a lot of bumps on the edge of the embankment. So that's driver intelligence, that's driver knowledge of each particular track. Well, they'll have to know.

I presume someone would tell them this. Oh, gosh, yeah. There's a whole team of analysts. Like the guy who did 175 miles per hour. I'm sure he told them maximum speed is 65. Because as his car was flung off the bank and out of the arena. Of course, you can do 200, 190, 180 going into it.

Because you're slowing down. At that point, you just don't want that to happen. And who was it, was it Mario Andretti, who said, if you're in complete control of your car, you're not in the race. Wow. So I've heard that. So they might be trying 166, 166.

You're testing those limits of physics. Otherwise, you're not in the race. You don't want to do it safe. They have to drive on the edge. They have to drive in the red zone all the time. All the time, yeah. If I believe, I mean, why wouldn't I believe it? You see what these guys are doing out there. All right, Chuck, let's get to another tweet.

We're going to stick with the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Charlotte Motor Speedway, which clearly you were watching this when you were tweeting. If the Charlotte Motor Speedway increased their banking angle from 24 degrees to 31 degrees, the earth as we know it would stop its rotation. No, no, that didn't say that. It didn't say that. It didn't say that. It says if they increase their banking angle from 24 to 31 degrees, the cars could do the turn at 200 miles per hour.

So this must be what you were talking about. The bank is turning the car itself. what you were talking about, the bank is turning the car itself. Exactly. So the deeper the bank, the higher the speed can be because you're getting the force that's pressing the car against the bank. There's more of a force to enable that turn.

It's not just the sliding of tires against roads sideways that's trying to prevent you from sliding, okay? That would then enable the turn. It's the bank is empowering your car to go at a higher speed in order to make that turn. See, that would be interesting from a racing point of view, because it means I could hit straightaway at 200 and not lose energy through braking coming into the bend. Not only that, not only that, if you drive at the exact speed that the bank was calculated for, you'd never have to turn your steering wheel.

Because the car thinks it's going straight the whole time. The car thinks it's going in a straight line. Yeah. The car does not. So you just surf it. So what's interesting to me is if you know this about the turns, the only steering you're doing is to maneuver in front and behind cars to position yourself. Right. So there's a whole other jockeying of what's going on among the cars, and it's not, I got to turn left.

And that was the joke in Charlotte, the town, all right? They say in Charlotte, people only know how to turn left. Right, yes, yes, yes. That's the joke. Right. Because all the tracks go counterclockwise around. And I'm saying if they're hitting the turns at the exact speed, they're not even turning the wheel to do that.

How brave is the driver that goes into the turn and goes, nah, I'll let the car take over this. Not a chance. So how much of a change in angle on the banking could we get away with and what sort of speeds could we play with? Well, my general question would be, you want more action, you want more speeds, why not just increase the angle? Right.

Here's the problem. If you're not doing 200 miles an hour, the car is going to want to slide down. Slide down. Yeah, yeah. You don't have enough force pinning it against the bank. Yeah, so if something goes down going into the turn and you don't keep up that speed, you're, yeah, the car's not stable on the bank. And this is for NASCAR, because we're about to revolutionize them with this physics,

not discovery, but point. Is it possible to get to a speed where you not only can go up, but total Hot Wheels corkscrew? Because then, I'm a NASCAR fan. Now I'm a NASCAR fan. It's like, you go into the turn,

you're up on the bank, and then all of a sudden, corkscrew throw, and you come out the other side. Yeah, the answer is yes. Oh, really? Yeah. In fact, they do it in amusement parks. Oh, yeah, that's right. Most roller coasters. And the wall of death, the vertical wall where the cyclist goes around.

Yeah, so for example, so it's just you have to be, if you travel fast. So in other words, let me restate your comment. If you travel fast enough, then you can, so now you're going up, right? Because if you go corkscrew, you have to go up. So if you're traveling fast enough, you can give yourself enough upward momentum so that your car continues to press against a surface that is pointing downwards.

Right. Okay? And then you come down off of that and do it another time. Yeah, in principle, you can design a racetrack where cars do corkscrews. But you have to be careful because you don't want the car to like stall before you go into it. Yes! Then you fall out. Oh, that's amazing! Oh my god, you're making me such a NASCAR fan right now. Corkscrews and cars falling from the sky.

Well, yeah, if you don't hit the speed. Right. It's all about the speed that you gotta hit. And so, yeah, that's a whole other danger factor. That's awesome. It ain't even about the crash. Is your car going to fall out of the sky? It will fall out of the sky. See, this is why I don't watch NASCAR, because I grew up on Speed Racer. I remember Speed Racer.

You remember Speed Racer? Here comes Speed Racer. He's a demon on wheels. He's barreling down the travel like he's ever, ever going to come back. Okay. This is real, right? I haven't dreamt this, that you two are serious. The power of pop culture on childhood.

On childhood. It's childhood pop culture. I need to lie down, and this means we're going to take a break. Please stick with us. We'll try and find out what top speeds NASCAR get to and what we think can happen if, if, if, if we can get close to 300 miles an hour, what kind of banking we'll get then. So if you want to find out, stick around. This is Playing With Science and we'll be back very, very shortly. Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Knight. And this is Playing With Science.

Yes, it is. And we are delving into the tweets of Neil deGrasse Tyson regarding NASCAR. If you missed the first section, don't worry. We've got plenty more. But go back and have a good listen because we discuss an awful lot of science in the sport of NASCAR. So let's get to our next tweet. Yes. Wait a minute. Are you a fan of NASCAR?

Have you ever followed NASCAR? I've attended. I've visited. I've been at one NASCAR race in my life. Oh, yeah? Right. I never understood why there was so much more interest in NASCAR relative to Formula One, at least in the United States. I just didn't understand that.

Did they have better marketing? Because, you know, the Formula One cars are pretty cool looking. Oh, my God. Right? They're like rockets with wheels. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the fact that they're so low God. Right? They're like rockets with wheels. Yeah, yeah. And the fact that they're so low to the ground. They're like, yeah, yeah.

They're this far off the ground. Right, right. So I never understood the difference in appeal. Right. But I like high performance people. I like high performance machines just as a general thing. I'll tell you why Formula One is not as popular here in America as NASCAR. Because Formula One racers speak like this.

And NASCAR drivers talk like this, dammit! That's American! American. American. Okay. As the token European, I feel I should stand up, but I just think I'm going to get knocked back down again. No, it's nothing against you.

No, I know it's not against me, but anyway, it's interesting. One's an oval and you couldn't put an NASCAR race in Monte Carlo, but you can with a Formula One, which is so, so special. Anyway, next tweet. Let's go there. All right. I know that it's maybe Formula Two. That's why it's been Formula 1 for so long.

There are formulas. There are other formulas coming down. Plus, there's an e-formula. Oh, yeah. I heard about that. Yes. Yes. Electric cars. Yeah.

And they race. They are rapid. Proper, seriously rapid. But next tweet. Let's go. Here we go. Spoilers increase the effective weight traction over a car's rear wheels at high speed without increasing the car's mass. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. Let's start out for a second. So, have you noticed, either in cars you've driven or observing a police car, that if you have a heavy trunk, you actually, your car is more stable on the road. I don't know if you've ever noticed this. I transport a lot of bodies in my truck. Okay, so that you should know. So I'm very well aware. So you would know.

And police cars can also be weighted towards the, sorry, back in the day when you had rear wheel traction. Right. Okay, so you would, if you have higher weight over those wheels, then in occasions where you might have spun out, you don't. You don't. And any time your car is spinning, then you don't have full traction with the ground and you're not in complete control of your car.

It's like sledding. I don't sled. Well, drifting. You don't sled! Dude, I'm telling you right now, this winter, me, you, Central Park, Giant Hill, we're taking it on, baby. But no, here's the deal. In sledding, you need a fat kid on your sled team. Oh!

If you don't have a fat kid on your sled team, forget it! You're just, it gives you more traction. Right, you need, that's just what you were saying. You didn't get that email about political correctness. Oh. I didn't know that email about political correctness. I didn't know this. Okay, okay. So go ahead.

Yeah, so the point is, if you're spinning, increase the weight, and then the contact with the ground becomes, the integrity gets restored, and your traction returns. The trouble is, by putting a whole load of bricks in the back of your NASCAR, you're going to lose everything because it's weight. But this is downforce without. Exactly. So your weight is whatever a scale will show. Right.

Let's not talk about that. I've been eating donuts lately. I'm just saying. Mexican, a lot of Mexican. Let's not talk about the scale. You can put bricks in the trunk of every NASCAR to increase that traction. You could do that. But then the engine now has, the motor, has to accelerate more weight. And Newton's second law of motion, the force equals the mass times acceleration. If the mass goes up, then you're getting a lower acceleration from the force. You're not going to go as fast, okay?

Or you're not going to be as nimble. So, is there any way to increase the weight on the back wheels, or the weight of the car, without increasing the mass of the car? And there is. And that's what the spoiler does. So as you're driving, air comes across the spoiler, presses down, increases the weight of the car without increasing the mass of the car. And this greatly improves your traction, especially at high speeds. So you said about the Formula One race cars being super sexy.

If you look at the curvature from the side, the profile of the car, it comes up over the front wheel, comes down and then up over the back. So what it's doing is dragging the airflow and you're gonna tell me exactly what the physics is. It's making that airflow over the rear wheels push that weight down. Therefore, you don't increase the mass of the vehicle but you are increasing the downforce, is that right? Right, so I don don't increase the mass of the vehicle, but you are increasing

the downforce. Is that right? Right. So, I don't know the shape of the vehicle so much as the spoiler itself. The sole job is this. There are other factors in the shape of the vessel regarding the aerodynamics. What you don't want is to have turbulence in the back of your car, which then creates a drag, a suction. It's kind of a backwards drag. This is why drafting works, OK? So you have a car that would have turbulence in the back. You come up behind it, OK?

Now it works in two ways. One, the car that's leading moves faster because it doesn't have the drag behind it. So people say, stop drafting off of me, I'm towing you. You're not actually towing the car. No, no, no. You want the person there. Right. Now, you actually want to be the second car rather than the first car, but if you are

the first car, it's better to have someone drafting than not. That's all I'm saying. Because that drafter is eliminating their drag. The drafter is eliminating the new car's drag. Correct. So now the air comes back and you have someone else drafting that and someone else drafting that. And now you are sucked in behind it. So this affects fuel efficiency too. Absolutely. Okay. I did this experiment once. So when I first got a car that tracked what your instantaneous… Yeah, yeah, your fuel consumption.

Your fuel consumption, you know, miles per gallon. Right. And you notice if you take your foot off the pedal, the miles per gallon goes up because you're moving but you're not… You're not sucking gas. You're not sucking gas. Okay. So I was just, you know, doing my own physics experiments on the road. This is my first outing in a car that did this.

You know, you might have a problem. No. So watch. So watch. So I do this and You know, you might have a problem. No! So watch. So watch. So I do this, and I say, so I wonder what'll happen if I get behind this truck. So I'm driving, and I'm getting like 25 miles a gallon.

And then I slide in behind the truck. And my foot is still on the accelerator, OK? And whoa, it was like 80 miles a gallon. I was behind the truck. Because you're drafting the truck. I'm drafting the truck. And it was like, whoa. And Neil drove all the way to Florida,

and he was only going to the store for some bread. I'm behind for some bread. Remember the show we did with Lance Armstrong? So you can do this experiment. It's a fascinating experiment. Remember the show? With Lance? Yeah.

Yeah, Lance and you got into this. Yeah, yeah. How you advocated following trucks down the freeway. Yes. And I said there and then, there's under no circumstances you're allowed to drive me anywhere on a long distance. Well, just, I mean, but for the sake of the experiment, for sure you would agree. Yes, of course, of course. I follow trucks too, but only because they're sexy.

So anyhow. We'll leave you with that. I'm just saying. So, the shape of the vehicle is more related to its aerodynamics. Yes. So that you don't have drag rather than the downward force that you're otherwise getting from the spoiler. Okay. So, if you're the car in front, can you create dirty air for the driver behind you that really plays with their driving? It's really just the shape of your car.

All right. Yeah. And in NASCAR, all the shapes are the same. Yes. It's all been the shape of your car. All right. Yeah, and in NASCAR, all the shapes are the same. Yes. It's all been neutralized, basically. So in NASCAR, is drafting like a strategy, like it is in the Tour de France? I don't see why it wouldn't be. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You see the sort of daisy chain of cars in races as they go around and around and around, and all of a sudden they pull that slingshot. Right, right. So what's going on when they pull that slingshot maneuver and use the energy to achieve that overtaking? No, I don't know the strategies of what's going on in the mind of the folks who are making these maneuvers. It's always odd to me that if you're third, when and how and why are you going to then take second and then take first?

You know, what are the strategies and how does that work? I can't tell you. Don't worry, the Twitterverse will tell us. As soon as this podcast is out, right now, there are people feverishly typing to tell us exactly how that happened. Right. Or when you would judge to do that. That's my point. Yeah, please.

Because if the cars are, to the extent that the cars are the same, you are then judging who's the better driver. Right. And then it's not about the physics. It's about who's the better driver. That's all. So my conversation ends where the physics ends, and then the driver strategies begin. In the end of the first bit, I said we'll get into the sort of speed. So if we got NASCARs hitting 300 miles an hour, say, in the future,

what sort of- You'd have to design the tracks differently. Yeah, what sort of angle? We talked about 24 and 31 degrees. What sort of angles would you anticipate the banking being? What could we see? Oh, it's a very straight calculation. So if you have straightaways long enough to sustain 300 miles an hour, and you don't want to slow down on the bank, I'd have to do the calculation. But a 40-degree bank, 45-degree, 50-degree bank.

Now, have you ever walked on the banked surface at NASCAR? Have you ever done that? No. You basically can't. You're like... Because the slope is higher. It's higher than any hill you have ever walked up. Okay, so it's already banked steeply.

It's already steep. Just next time something happens on the track in the bank section, watch the guys go up to try, if there's an accident or something, watch the guys trying to, it's like walking on a roof. Okay? A mountaineer pitched roof, right? Yeah, yeah, pitched roof. You can't do it.

Right, right, it's hard. It's hard. You can do it. You can do it hard, yeah, yeah. And if you go to the NASCAR Museum in Charlotte, they have a car parked on the slope of the track. And it's like, did they just lift this up for me to see? Right.

Is that why? No, that's the slope of the track. That's right. They're trying to show you exactly what the slope is. Exactly how that goes down. I just want to see your bank track walk again, because that was. No. So for those of you who are listening, you missed a super cool,

Neil's bank track walk looks like a cross between Fred Sanford having a heart attack and somebody doing the poopy walk to the bathroom. It was awesome. I have to agree. We need to talk. We need to talk. We need to talk. So anyway, so the value of the spoiler is you have better traction there. And what's interesting is there's some models of Porsche, you know, commercial Porsches,

where there's a spoiler that comes up only above a certain speed. Yeah, oh, that's standard on a number of vehicles. A number of vehicles. So what's funny to me is if you left your radar gun at home and you're a cop, and a Porsche goes by and a spoiler's up, just write him a damn ticket. Ding! Yeah. You know what's funny is, I would see that, the Porsche,

and I thought the guy was just showing off for me. Oh, okay. But really what he was doing was like, eat my dust. But you get to a certain point and that spoiler comes up. Yeah, and you know it. And by the way, the spoiler is not so useful at low speeds. Because the downward force is not significant. But at high speeds it's really

significant. And it's not driver controlled. The car does it because the car knows it needs to do that because it's triggered off at a certain speed. Absolutely. And by the way, the spoilers I haven't seen them lately, but they had like the cross section of an airplane wing. Yes. Okay.

But upside down. Right. So that the force pushes down instead of up. Right. But if you happen to have that at the wrong angle. Yeah. And you reduce the pressure on your wheels, all hell goes, breaks loose. I mean, you can't, then you're not in control of the car.

Right. And the car tumbles and flips. You flip the car. Yeah, you can't, then you're not in control of the car. Right. And the car tumbles and flips. You flip the car. Yeah, you can flip the car. Look at you, just constantly finding ways to make NASCAR better. I'm just saying. But we've got to get to 300 miles an hour somehow. Right.

So what is the top speed? Do you guys know? I don't know. I don't know what the top speed of NASCAR is. Well, see, there are cars. Are they limited? Is it limited? You know, I'm sure it is.

Why don't you bring a NASCAR expert here? I just know physics. No, we're just interested in your tweets. There will be experts out there listening to this show who will feed back into us, and please do. But there are cars being developed now that are topping out at 300 miles an hour. And I can't believe for one second the good people who build the NASCARs won't have that kind of technology, that ability, particularly electric hybrid engines that are going to just tear through 300 miles an hour. So, like you said, the straightaways are going to have to be longer. Yeah.

Tracks are going to have to be different. And if you want a high-speed turn, it's got to be a higher, a more significant back. And if you're a designer of NASCAR tracks and you're listening, please build in a corkscrew just for my friend here. Thank you. Guaranteed an extra, extra viewer. Right. We're going to take our next break.

I hope you've enjoyed so far because we've got plenty more NASCAR thoughts from Neil when we get back. Stay tuned. Welcome back. I'm Gary O' get back. Stay tuned. Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Nice. And this is Playing With Science, a little NASCAR special for you,

brought to you by the tweets of Neil deGrasse Tyson. Chuck, let's get stuck straight in. That was a thank you. That was my NASCAR. Thank you. Oh, can I tell you why that is an inaccurate? What? What I just did?

Okay, I've only built one. Come on now, Neil. Let me tell you something. is an inaccurate? What? What I just did? Okay, I've only been to one. Come on now, Neil. Let me tell you something. No, no. Sit there. Sit still and take your medicine. It is such a rare occasion that I would ever disagree with you only because it never works.

So I'm trying to figure out how this is not NASCAR. I'll tell you why. Okay. But it's for an obscure reason. Okay? We love an obscure reason. So I'm not speaking for all tracks. I've been to one NASCAR race.

It was at Daytona. Okay? All right. And so one of my great disappointments was they had speakers at every sort of interval of the track of the sound of the race going into the audience. Are you telling me that it's not true Doppler happening? That's my point! So all you hear is

because wherever they are, that's the sound of the race. And I so wanted to be full-up Doppler gangstas, right? Where the cars go... Right! See, you know why? That's the Doppler effect! And I wanted the Doppler effect, and he didn't give me the Doppler effect!

If you're listening, the good people of NASCAR, please, please, please, because I hate to see him like this. I hate to see him so effective. By his lack of Doppler effect. So here's the sound, a car in motion, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please,

please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please,, that way. If the car now moves, it makes a sound when it's over here, but the next time it makes a wave, it's further in this direction. So the next wave is now closer in separation in the front than it is in the back.

Because the next wave is pushing in this direction. So you're pushing the waves in the front and leaving, stretching the waves in the back. Stretching the waves in the back. And so the waves in the front change frequency. It's a higher pitch. And the waves behind are a lower pitch. So Christian Doppler first discovered this, a German physicist. And he did it with train whistles, okay?

So the train comes towards you. train whistles, okay? So the train comes towards you. He noticed it had a higher pitch than when it's just in front of you than when it was passing, moving away from you. So that's why I go, so it's high pitch. And we associate that with,

so, but, but, Which number car was that? Watch, watch. So, so we know that sound. Right. We watch. So we know that sound. Right. We fully understand. We know that sound. But have you ever thought about it?

It doesn't go. It's not what it does. No. No. And so you have to be curious enough, as Doppler was, to think about this. And he wrote a formula. It's called the Doppler effect.

And it applies to cars and train whistles. And in the universe, we get the speeds of things by looking at how the frequency of light has shifted in our galaxy. So, anyhow, that's why maybe other tracks don't have

speakers all around. Then you would hear but otherwise. And please tweet us for your favorite Neil deGrasse Tyson impersonation. Of the Doppler effect. Just put a wish list together of what you would like Neil or Chuck to impersonate and we'll do our best. Would it be weird if it went

That would be the time reverse Doppler effect. That's a Doppler orgasm. Okay. All right, what's next? I don't know. Sorry. Completely confused me. Okay, let's move on.

Do another one. Do another tweet. When I come to terms with that, my head hurts. Now that NASA isn't launching space shuttles, would it be cool if, at NASCAR, allowed drivers to attach unused solid rocket boosters? Come on. Why not? I mean, if you have all these other sponsoring agents,

the Army, you know, the Navy, and I'm thinking, why don't we have NASA sponsor a car? Right. But then it would kind of have to win every race. That's true. Right? That's true. So how would you make sure of that?

So you slip in some solid rocket boosters, I think, and wait, and then maybe no one can notice. No one will notice this big Saturn V. It's a big Saturn V on wheels, start line, and no one's, no, no, no, you're not seeing that really. It would just be kind of cool really but then it's a rocket it's a rocket race rather than a road race that's the problem i still like it and and by the way i'm i'm i think there needs to be more cheating in nascar so you know doping at nascar i'm all for a nascar doping man i mean all the guys all the cars are exactly the same. Engine dumping. You know, I understand that that is what creates a, you know, for our lack of a better term, perfect competition. Yes.

Okay. Driver against driver. Driver against driver. All the machines are the same. Right, to the same weight, too. Right, right. Right. But the thing is, like, even in cycling or even in cafe racing, you can make modifications to the bike.

What's cafe racing? The motorcycles. Cafe? Cafe racers, yeah. That's what that's called? Yeah, where they pull the bike down. And they've got a knee thing. Speedway.

That's speedway. The cafe racers are the one with the little round front, the older ones back in the day. Oh, by the way, by the way, the motorcyclists that lean like that, the reason why they're leaning is because the track is not banked high enough. Right. They're actually pulling the bike down. Right, right, okay. So if they banked the track, they wouldn't have to lean so much.

That's all I'm saying. Yeah. But then it wouldn't be as cool. On a MotoGP track, if they banked it, when you see those guys flying. Yeah, it's not as fun to watch. Right, right, it wouldn't be as fun to watch. So if you banked it so that it was perpendicular to the angle that they are wanting to achieve anyway,

then they're just driving a straight line. Yeah. Well, let me tell you, now that's fun. Then you wouldn't need the knee guards. Well, you need them. I used to ride, and that's the best part of riding a motorcycle. You used to have a pretty face before that happened. End of a beautiful friendship. That's that friendship over.

Actually, that was good. I like it. I appreciate it there. Okay. All right, so solid rocket boosters for NASCAR. I'm all about it. Okay, let's move on. At 200 miles per hour.

Oh, wait, wait, wait. Sorry. Yes? One last thing about the solid rocket boosters you might not have known. it. Okay, let's move on. At 200 miles per hour. Oh, wait, wait, wait. Sorry. Yes? One last thing about the solid rocket boosters you might not have known. Okay. Okay? Do you remember the space shuttle when it launched?

It had two solid rocket boosters, one on the left and one on the right. And then a big old orange tank in the middle. Yes. Okay? The orange tank has liquid fuel. You can throttle that. You can stop it. You can make it more or less.

And that fuel comes out of that tank through the shuttle and comes out the nozzles out of the back. The solid rocket boosters are stand-alone things. When you ignite a solid rocket booster, they do not shut off until there's no fuel left in it. Until it's empty. Until it's empty. Wow.

So, when they begin the main engine, they do that a few seconds before. Is everything good? Oh, it's not good, cut it off. Right, because the solid rocket boosters. Okay, but the moment they hit the solid rocket boosters, it is going to orbit, okay? Oh, that's great!

Almost to orbit. So what happens is, once they ignite, it is not coming back to Cape Canaveral. So what, so those puppies have to run their course, and then it lands in Spain is what happens. So they have these landing points. Good luck with steering one of those rocket NASCARs. Right. So once you ignite a solid rocket booster, it's over.

That's it. It's a done deal. That's a wild ride. I love it. That's a wild ride. Houston, we left the door open. Sorry. Sorry.

Solid rocket boosters are in effect, babe. We'll see. So the one thing you could do on a NASCAR with a solid rocket is save on braking. Yeah, because you can't do it. You can't brake. There's no braking. If you tried to brake it, then, you know, put on brakes, you would just melt the tires into the road. I'm telling you guys.

You're already weight saving. Love it. Listen, I am telling you guys right now, between the two of you, you have vastly improved the sport of NASCAR. Okay? With all these ideas. With all these ideas. You're welcome. Corkscrew tracks.

No brakes. High bank, high bank turns. High bank turns. Let me tell you something. No brake NASCAR? I'm bank turn. High bank turn. Let me tell you something. No brake NASCAR? I'm watching that. I wonder why. I'm watching that.

Fox presents no brake NASCAR. You want to talk about the highest ratings ever? You put 30 cars on the track with no brakes? That is amazing. Copyrighted playing with science. No brakes NASCAR. Let's do our next tweet. There with science. No brakes NASCAR. Yeah, let's do our next tweet. There you go.

No brakes NASCAR, baby. It's coming your way. All right, let's move on to our next one. At 200 miles per hour, a nice NASCAR speed, it'd take 1,200 hours or 50 days to drive to the moon, and drivers would never need to turn left. You're in a mischievous mood when you hear that. So just to be clear, if you're going to drive to the moon, you don't aim for the moon.

Okay. What you have to do is aim for where the moon will be when you get there. Right. That makes sense because the moon is moving. The moon is moving. And this is a 50-day drive, so that's one and two-thirds of a lunar cycle. So what will happen is you aim for some empty part of space. The moon will pass in front of you, make a full orbit around the Earth again, and then it's there when you get there.

Wow. And we don't normally think about it that way, but these are sort of pirouetting performers in a cosmic ballet, choreographed by the forces of gravity. So you don't need a GPS. That was very eloquent. You know, that makes me feel like I should watch a J-Lo show where planets are dancing. Okay. You're going to be watching that on your own. On your own, yeah.

You're going to be watching that on your own. On your own, yeah. 50 days to drive to the moon, which is just a couple days longer than it takes to do the Daytona 500. So it's good. That thing is like, what, seven weeks long? No. How long is it? You can do the math. If it's 500, it's 500 miles.

If you go 200 miles an hour, it's a two and a half hour race. Is that all? Do the math. I don't. So it's three hours because they're not always 200 miles an hour. It's a two and a half hour race. Is that all? Do the math. I don't. So it's three hours because they're not always 200 miles an hour. I know. Because you say 500 miles an hour, that would take me three days at a pee break to do. Okay.

But if you're going 200 miles an hour, just do the math. 500 miles divided by 200 miles per hour is two and a half hours. See, I'm going to have to take your word for that because I don't have my phone with the calculator on it. Because I have a Google brain now. Oh, okay. So there's a new app called the brain app. There it is. I have a Google brain. I don't do these calculations in my head. The software that's hardware, the brain is wetware. Yes. There you go. That's right.

So if we're gonna drive to the moon, we don't need GPS. We need another system of guidance. You need a system of orbital mechanics to know that the moon will be there when you arrive in this empty part of space that you're headed towards. Wow, that's a really bad miscalculation to make. Yeah, it would be. It's like when you show up and you're like, hey guys, shouldn't the moon be here? It was here.

It should have been here. Guys, the moon should have been here like an hour ago. What's happening? It's not like you're winding the window down in Oscar directions. But consider, it's not that we are stationary and the moon is moving around us. Right. We are not only rotating, we are orbiting the sun. So we are on a moving platform trying to hit a moving platform.

So really, you need to remember your physics for this. Absolutely. So these orbital mechanics work for, you have to do that no matter what. So like the Philae Lander, no matter what you're shooting into space to go someplace. Look at him talking about the Philae Lander. No, let him, no, let him.

That's the Lander from the... Star Trek. Lander the asteroid. From Star Trek. Rosetta mission. Rosetta land on a asteroid. From Star Trek. Rosetta. Rosetta mission to a comet had a lander called Philae. Right. And it's mostly a European mission.

Yeah. But it didn't succeed then? No. Is that what you're telling me? No, no. They actually said. We lost a Mars rover, didn't we? Beagle.

Yeah, because there was a mismatch of... Was that the one where they mismatched newtons of thrust and pounds of thrust? It looked like a really sophisticated... It's a measurement. The measurement, yeah. So it's the disparity in measurements that caused it to screw up. Because the engineers did one thing,

the scientists did another, and we lost an entire... It looked like a really complicated skateboard from memory. There we go. Well, there you go. scientist did another and we lost an entire... It looked like a really complicated skateboard from memory. There we go. So well there you go. If you're going to drive to the moon the thing that you have to make sure of is your orbital mechanics. Yeah because on earth you're driving to something that you see it's there and you just vector towards it. Right. You can't do that in space. Yeah. Cool. All right. So notes for future. Remember, you heard it here first. Sir, what a pleasure.

Yeah. This is a fun show. Yeah. We did all the tweets? Yeah, we did. And you're going to have to tweet more. Yeah, now you're going to have to make more tweets about NASCAR. So, I think there was another NASCAR tweet.

I think you missed it. What? Okay. I just asked, am I the last person in the world to realize that race car spelled backwards is race car? Dun dun dun! Wait a minute. Mushroom cloud!

So. Okay, so now we've messed with your mind as well as Chuck's. No, no. But race car people, I think, know that. Because in my, in my mind, I think, I think, I think, I think, I think, I think, I think, Mushroom cloud! Okay, so now we've messed with your mind. No, no. But race car people, I think, know that. Because in the response to that Twitter, I tweeted that.

And they said, yes, you are the last person in the world to know this. Yeah, that's a palindrome, right? I forgot. I think that's called a palindrome. All right. When it's spelled the same way forward and backwards. I did not know that, by the way. So you are not the last person in the world.

I am the last person in the world now. But, you know, the longest, like, legit one of those. The longest legit palindrome? Yeah, you know, the longest one. No. Okay. A man, a plan, a canal, Panama. A man, a plan, a canal, Panama.

Now I'm reading it backwards in my mind right now. You're correct. Yes, that's why you have me on the show. So, isn't this what they did? But see, wait. There are longer ones, but they're just weird. Did you see that? That's my go-to, right?

So Neil says something, and I go, hmm. You're right. I feel like bitch-slapping right. I feel like bitch slapping him. It's like, what? And then I basically get to take credit for your brain. Let me think about this, Neil. God, you're right. No, no.

So the thing is, if I were actually wrong, I'd want to know immediately. Of course. But I invest a lot of energy trying to get it right. But I can't be right 100% of all times I'm ever speaking. So I welcome comments if people think I did something wrong. Oh, and there's a lot of them. Alright. Okay. That's it. That's our show? That's our show.

Once again, we have proved every day is a school day. And play with science. And you get what, Chuck? You get no brakes NASCAR. It's coming. No brakes. That's the way itCAR. It's coming. No brakes. Yeah, that's the way it is.

It's been Playing With Science. Thank you so much to Neil deGrasse Tyson. Absolutely. Chuck and I will be back soon. Stick around for our next show.