Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio, Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren bog Obam Here. When it comes to
Speaker 1: fictional animals capable of breaking the sound barrier, there's no
Speaker 1: beating Sonic the hedgehog. But would he be able to
Speaker 1: survive his own super swiftness. Sonic is the star of
Speaker 1: the long running Sega video game franchise and now a
Speaker 1: movie wherein he spins and rolls at breakneck speeds in
Speaker 1: order to defeat the evil doctor robot Nick. So how
Speaker 1: fast do Sonic go? As his name implies, he reaches
Speaker 1: sonic speeds, meaning that he can travel as fast as
Speaker 1: a sound wave through Earth's atmosphere, which is roughly seven
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty seven miles per hour or one thousand,
Speaker 1: two hundred and thirty five kilometers per hour depending on
Speaker 1: air temperature. He also goes supersonic under the right circumstances,
Speaker 1: so it's probably safe to assume that he exceeds the
Speaker 1: speed of sound as well. That's incredibly fast. Most hedgehogs
Speaker 1: do get around. They're extremely active in the wild and
Speaker 1: often run several miles each night, which are regular hedgehog
Speaker 1: business hours, but sonic speeds are much faster. Consider that
Speaker 1: the world's fastest organism, the Peregrine falcon, only reaches a
Speaker 1: maximum speed of about two hundred miles per hour or
Speaker 1: three kilometers first sustained speeds. The Cheetah is Sonic's closest rival,
Speaker 1: at a mere seventy miles per hour or a d
Speaker 1: ten kilometers. Sonic smokes them both. So could Sonic realistically
Speaker 1: handle supersonic speeds. Let's think about it. Humans routinely break
Speaker 1: the sound barrier in supersonic aircraft. Aboard the now discontinued Concorde,
Speaker 1: passengers could even enjoy an in flight meal. But this
Speaker 1: is all within the artificial confines of an airplane. All
Speaker 1: Sonic has is his own body. His body would have
Speaker 1: to be incredibly strong and durable to achieve and survive
Speaker 1: the wear and tear of supersonic speeds, even if he's
Speaker 1: rolling through smooth tubes and shoots half the time at
Speaker 1: those speeds, small particles of dust and even the air
Speaker 1: itself could cause serious damage. As author James Cacallios points
Speaker 1: out in the Physics of Superheroes, a super fast organism
Speaker 1: like the Flash would need superhaling abilities to rapidly recover
Speaker 1: from the physical damage of each acceleration, to say nothing
Speaker 1: of smashing into things. The same goes for sonic. But
Speaker 1: then again, if we're to assume that sonic species evolved
Speaker 1: to reach such high speeds, he must be sturdy enough
Speaker 1: to survive it, at least in the short term. So
Speaker 1: perhaps he does have the sort of enhanced healing speeds
Speaker 1: necessary to keep all his bones and ligaments from snapping.
Speaker 1: As pointed out by Duke Universities patech Labs, various animals
Speaker 1: are capable of incredible speeds when it comes to parts
Speaker 1: of their anatomy, such as the mantis shrimps three millisecond
Speaker 1: club strikes. There's even a hypothesis that prehistoric sauropods could
Speaker 1: have whipped their tails at sonic speed like a bull whip,
Speaker 1: but that remains rather controversial, and maybe we're being too
Speaker 1: hard on sonic. He's a blue hedgehog that chases coins
Speaker 1: across a pinball landscape and in later games achieves faster
Speaker 1: than light travel. Plus he's still going strong after almost
Speaker 1: thirty years, which for a hedgehog is almost as impressive
Speaker 1: as that speed. Today's episode was written by Robert Lamb
Speaker 1: and produced by Tyler clang. For more on this and
Speaker 1: lots of other specific topics, visit how stuffworks dot com.
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