Neil DeGrasse Tyson Screwed Up A Tweet About Basic Physics
When an episode of Neil deGrasse Tyson's (frankly excellent) Cosmos gets postponed for the NASCAR Coca-Cola 600 race, Neil deGrasse Tyson got revenge the only way he knew how – by dropping knowledge. But one of those tweets might have been just a bit wrong.
Before we continue, let me give a little disclaimer. I am not a physicist in any way, shape, or form. Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson very much is. I'm just a journalist, and also a race fan.
And by and large, Tyson's breakdown of racing physics doesn't seem that far off to me, the layperson. But in his series of tweets about racing, a few stood out as not making much sense.
First, however, we learned that Dr. T is an avid reader of The Feiner Things:
I'm quite sure I'm the last person in the universe to have learned that RACECAR spelled backwards is RACECAR
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) May 26, 2014
And then we really began to get our learn on:
At 200mph, a nice @NASCAR speed, it'd take 1200hrs (50days) to drive to the Moon. And drivers would never need to turn left.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) May 26, 2014
Nice, physics-y. Some math. But after this next tweet, and a few others, we began to grow concerned:
Rubber tires on asphalt grant a maximum speed of about 165 mph in the 24-degree banked turns at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) May 26, 2014
If you travel faster than 165 mph on the 24-degree bank turns at Charlotte Motor Speedway you will skid into the embankment.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) May 26, 2014
If the Charlotte Motor Speedway increased their banking angle from 24 to 31 degrees, the cars could do the turn at 200 mph.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) May 26, 2014
That might not look like much to someone who doesn't follow racing, but average qualifying speeds at Charlotte Motor Speedway was hovering around 190 miles per hour. Jimmie Johnson, the polesitter and eventual race winner, clocked in at almost 195 MPH. There are videos of NASCAR racers mid-corner at 180 MPH minimum.
IndyCar drivers do it even faster.
Johnson would have to be doing way over 200 MPH on the straightaways if he was limited to only 165 MPH in the turns. And at a NASCAR race like the Coke 600, drivers can't reach those speeds.
Now, I'm not saying that Dr. Tyson is completely wrong, or hugely messed up, but I'd like to see what kind of work he did. All we know is that drivers were regularly rounding those corners at speeds significantly in excess of 165 MPH.
He might not have been taking aerodynamics into account, we don't know what coefficient of friction he was using for the rubber in the tires, the weight of the car, nothing. He provided no data.
In fact, he referenced aerodynamics in his very next tweet:
Spoilers increase the effective weight (traction) over a car's rear wheels at high speed — without increasing the car's mass.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) May 26, 2014
I reached out to Dr. Tyson on Twitter for him to expand upon his initial math, but as he doesn't follow me on Twitter, I don't think he'll respond.
In the meantime, we've reached out to another physicist to help investigate.
Think you've got another explanation? Let us know in the comments below.