The Super Gs

As while reading Riding Rockets, I did some calculations. According to the astronaut, the acceleration during launch could reach a little bit more than 3Gs. Be noted that is pure forward acceleration, which builds up the speed travelling forward. As 3G really sounds exciting, I scratched on a piece of paper, trying to see how many Gs we could usually experience, in a passenger car, or even a super car.

For that purpose, I used well publicised 0-60 mph data. 60 mph is roughly 26.67 m/s. For my car, it can reach 60 mph in a pathetic 7.5 seconds. That translates to 0.36G. If your car can reach 60 mph in 6 seconds, you can experience 0.45G if you floor the gas. Now comes the super car, the most powerful and fastest passenger car, Bugatti Veyron; it can do 0-60 in 3 seconds, still that's less than 1G. Maybe the only way to experience an acceleration of 1G in my life time would be jumping off a mountain, head first; even strapping a big rock on me won't make that more than 1G.