So, christie and I are watching TV on the couch, and all of a sudden this Lexus ad comes on. It involves a claim that a car is defying gravity. If you have not seen it, here is a link:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... mmercialGo watch it, and then read my commentary.I have several problems with this advertisement. First of all, the car that is supposedly accelerating faster than gravity has a HEAD START. We have no idea how fast the car is already moving when they drop the lexus from the helicopter... For all we know, it could be going 100 mph and in that case, a god damn Geo Metro could do this.For all the folks that do not know me, I am really into cars, specifically, fast cars. I own one, and I always have, hopefully I always will. I have ridden in a car that has 1g of straight line acceleration (this means it accelerates as fast as gravity), and it will blow your mind. Its fast, scary fast. But this lexus obviously does not have that kind of acceleration, since it requires a head start.Lets do some math on this to try and determine the 1/4 mile time of a car that could acheive 1g of straight line acceleration.1/4 mile = 1320 feetS=1/2 a t^2S=1320fta=32ft/sec^2Working this out gives a t of 9.08 seconds. Thus, the lexus (if it started from a rest) would have to be capable of running a 1/4 mile in 9 seconds. A 2007 Bugatti Veyron (considered the fastest production car in the world) can do a quarter mile in 10.2 seconds, and it has 1001 horsepower. By contrast, the Lexus IS350 puts out a max of 306 horsepower. Triple that and you still wouldn't beat old man gravity. Sorry Lexus, it just doesn't impress me.At the very end of the commercial, their smooth talkin spokesman says "Lexus. So much for gravity" Riiiiiight. So much for your bogus and misleading ad, jerks.-Scotty