Reader Colin asked a great question about this popular clip.
How fast was the car moving?
First, a quick assumption. I will assume that the frame rate on the video is correct (meaning not slowed down). Colin already looked up the length of the Chevy Impala on Wikipedia for me. It has a length of 5.09 meters (I need that to scale the video).
This is the data I get from Tracker Video. The graph below is the x-position of the car with a line fit to the part of the motion before it hit the "ramp". Note that since the car is moving to the left, it has a negative x-velocity.
So, this says the…
Advertisment
