Fact check: Neil deGrasse Tyson standing by his NASCAR numbers
World-renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is standing by his NASCAR facts.
In May, Tyson took to Twitter during the Coca-Cola 600 to drop some serious knowledge on the physics of NASCAR and fast-moving things. However, some took issue with the following claim:
Well, Tyson isn't backing down ... and on Tuesday, he offered a much deeper explanation in the comments section of Jalopnik.com. Why'd it take him so long to respond? According to Tyson, "The universe has been keeping me quite busy lately". We bet.
If you're a science buff, you can read his complete 5-point response here, but the gist is this:
For my calculation, I used the published radius of curvature and bank angle for Charlotte Motor speedway. Assuming a coefficient of friction of 1.0, I derived 165 mph.
Sounds good to us!
