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There is a reason why Germany allows driving at 300 km/h and it is not history or politics: it is the asphalt

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If you like to step on the accelerator, you will have already seen firsthand that cornering at 100 km/h is better than at 130 km/h. I don’t need to remind you that the maximum speed allowed on state roads is 120 km/h. Although there are quite a few countries within the European Union with higher limits, Germany is the only state where there are sections without speed limit. 300 km/h without breaking a sweat. Obviously, this poses a danger to driving as cars such as a Porsche at 322 km/h. At these speeds, the risk of the car jumping or losing control is notable. But the “recipe” for manufacturing the German Autobahn has its particularities that allow it to offer enviable flatness and a road surface with high load capacity. And it can be found in the regulations and standards of the FGSV (Research Society for Highways and Transportation) and the BASt (German Federal Authority for Road Safety and Traffic). Blessed sandwich. While in Spain Flexible or semi-rigid pavement predominates with thicknesses of 40 to 60 centimeters. In Germany they use a standardized layer system called RStO 12 (Guidelines for the Standardization of Pavement Structures). That is, with a total thickness of between 70 and 90 centimeters with an antifreeze base composed of highly permeable gravel and sand so that water does not remain trapped (in case of freezing, it would generate large cracks as a result of expansion). About this, layers of gravel mixed with concrete or asphalt to provide sufficient rigidity to prevent collapse under the passage of heavy trucks. cwhen concrete and when asphalt. In the intermediate section the Germans use two materials, highlighting the concrete for those stretches of free speed and high truck traffic thanks to its rigidity and durability. In more detail: The 25 to 30 centimeter high-resistance concrete pavements longitudinally integrate plastic-coated steel bars. Thus, they allow some thermal expansion but do not allow them to move independently, causing steps. The transition between the concrete slabs is barely noticeable. Asphalt with stone matrix (S.M.A.), a combination with crushed stone and cellulose to offer extreme resistance to deformation and maximize the tire’s grip. The “superstructure” of German roads. Von Susan from Bielefeld, Deutschland – Straße, CC BY 2.0 Extreme plain for safety and by law. If you hit a speed bump at a certain speed, your car will go away. If you go 300 km/h in a sports car, the loss of aerodynamic load is such that it could be fatal. So Germany takes the plain very seriously by regulations: the maximum allowable deviation three millimeters in four meters. They achieve it with controlled pavers by global navigation and laser sensor systems. Auf wiedersehen, aquaplaning. Once the risk of steps, cracks and unevenness has been minimized, there remains another staunch enemy for speed: water on the asphalt. And they fight it in two ways. For starters, autobahns have a slope of at least 2.5% on the sides to evacuate the water as soon as possible. For concrete pavements, it is used waschbeton or washed concrete, a technique that brushes the surface to expose the aggregates, thus creating a rough, non-slip area that breaks up any water film that may form. In Xataka | Germany, Austria and Switzerland have plenty of roads. So they have started covering them with solar panels In Xataka | The Autobahn are the only roads in Europe without a speed limit. More and more Germans want to end them Cover | Wes Tindel and Nick Fewings

In 2010, the owner of a Ferrari missed a radar in Switzerland at 137 km/h. He took home the most expensive fine in history

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The fine for speeding highest ever recorded did not come from a German road or a French motorway. It arose in Switzerland, and they gave it to the driver of a Ferrari Testarossa. The most curious thing is that they did not put it in for pushing the power of this 90’s classic to the limit since it was traveling at 137 km/h. The result was a fine of more than 247,000 euros, an amount that officially appears in the Guinness World Records as the biggest fine for speeding. A record fine. The highest speeding fine officially recorded was imposed in Switzerland in January 2010. A court in the canton of St. Gallen sentenced the driver of a Ferrari Testarossa to pay about $290,000 (more than 247,000 euros at the exchange rate) after being detected by radar traveling at 137 km/h in a section limited to 80 km/h. The amount of the fine was not arbitrary. In Switzerland, judges do not set fines based on rigid tables according to the infraction, but rather based on the real impact they must have on each driver’s pocket. A system designed so that everyone hurts equally. Swiss legislation contemplates a model of fines proportional to the driver’s income, instead of establishing a table of fixed amounts as happens in Spain. This applies an equivalence factor with respect to economic capacity, making the sanctions truly have a deterrent nature. A fine of 200 euros for a person who charges a salary of 16,000 euros It can be a compelling reason for you to take your foot off the accelerator when you don’t play. But that same figure is insignificant for someone with a net worth of several million euros. Sanctions in Switzerland are at another level. In the case of the driver of the Testarossa, the sanction was triggered because the driver declared assets that exceeded 22 million dollars and accumulated a record for similar violations. For the Swiss authorities, the fine should reflect not only the risk committed, but also the economic impact it should generate. The 2010 record is not an isolated case. According to collects the local newspaper 24hourslast August a billionaire resident in Lausanne was fined 90,000 Swiss francs (about 96,500 euros) after exceeding the 50 km/h limit on the road while traveling at 77 km/h. Although the violation was not extreme, the final calculation was, and was justified by evaluating income, assets, and family circumstances. 96,000 euros for exceeding the speed limit by 27 km/h. Switzerland is not the only country that applies it. Finland shares a sanctioning philosophy similar to that applied in Switzerland. There are also fines calculated according to income, with precedents that have exceeded 120,000 euros. One of the best known cases It is that of a businessman who was traveling at 82 km/h in an area limited to 50 km/h and ended up facing a fine of 120,000 euros due to his level of income. In Austria, for example, a millionaire They took away his driving license and the Bugatti Veyron was immediately seized for traveling at 123 km/h in an area limited to 60 km/h. Spain will never come close to these figures. The Spanish traffic legislation is located at the opposite extreme. The fines depend exclusively on the margin exceeded over the speed limit, not on the financial capacity of the offender. Thus, the case of the Finnish driver fined 120,000 euros, in Spain would be resolved with a fine of 400 euros and four points less on the driving license. In fact, you would even have a 50% discount on the fine if you pay it in the first few days. In Spain, the most serious sanctions are penalized with a maximum of 600 euros and the withdrawal of six points on the license, without there being a link between the sanctions and the level of income. This implies that someone with high purchasing powermay consider the cost of the infringement to be minimal, thus losing its deterrent nature. In Xataka | The DGT allows legal circulation at 150 km/h without being an emergency vehicle. The secret: a sign Image | Unsplash (Noah Boyer)

a supermassive black hole ejected from its galaxy at 3.4 million km/h

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Until now, we thought about supermassive black holes like the immovable anchors of galaxies, being gravitational giants that keep everything in order from the center. But we were quite wrong, since the James Webb Space Telescope us has confirmed that, sometimes, these anchors break and are shot through intergalactic space as if they were real gun bullets. The study. A team led by astronomer Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University has presented the first observational confirmation of a wandering supermassive black hole. It is called RBH-1 and its existence is the result of one of the most violent events that physics allows: being “kicked” out of your home by gravitational waves. A scar. Detecting this is not easy, since black holes They cannot be seen with the naked eye, but the destruction they leave in their wake is analyzed. This is precisely what JWST saw when it detected a massive linear structure about 200,000 light years long (twice the diameter of the Milky Way), which connects a distant galaxy with a bright, fuzzy spot. After trying to analyze this destruction in more detail, the telescope itself has revealed that it is a discontinuity. In layman’s terms: there is something extremely massive moving at an absurd speed of 954 km/s, which is equivalent to 3.4 million kilometers per hour. A speed that would allow us to travel from the Earth to the Moon in less than seven minutes. How do we know? The question in this case seems obligatory: How do we know that it is a black hole and not a simple star formation? The answer lies in everything it leaves in its wake, since by moving at this type of high speed, the black hole It compresses the gas so violently that it generates a trail of hot plasma that can be measured, as well as the formation of new stars. And now science has been able to confirm that this gas is not heated by the light emitted by stars, but by the brutal collision of a target that has at least 10 million times the mass of the Sun. Why is he running away? The theory behind this phenomenon is not new, but has been predicted by general relativity for 50 years. But in order to understand what has happened here, we can see it in three different steps: The first thing that happened was the merger of two galaxies and their respective supermassive black holes that began to orbit each other. After this, a third galaxy arrives to join this party and its black hole interacts with the binary system formed before. Finally, a cosmic “kick” is given. In this case, the interaction of three bodies generates a great asymmetry in the gravitational waves that results in a black hole shooting out of the galaxy at a high speed. It’s not the first. We already knew about wandering “stellar mass” black holes (a few times the mass of the Sun) roaming our own Milky Way, detected by gravitational microlensing effects by Hubble or the Gaia mission. However, finding a supermassive, what is the type of object that usually lives in the heart of galaxies, is a milestone on a different scale. Why this matters. The confirmation of RBH-1 is not a simple curiosity for physicists, but validates models of galactic evolution that suggest that the universe is full of these ‘exiles’. And this shows that if supermassive black holes can be ejected so easily, it means that many galaxies could be “orphaned” of their central core, affecting how they grow and form stars. Images | NASA Hubble Space Telescope In Xataka | China is launching more rockets into space than ever before. And the reason is very simple: not to depend on Starlink

The Madrid-Barcelona AVE will reach a peak speed of 350 km/h. And it will do so thanks to new sleepers of Spanish design

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While in China they are already thinking about trains that reach 4,000 km/hIn Spain we are looking for an AVE that reaches 350 km/h that could be reached without problems if it were not for one detail: the tracks. And for something much more specific: the sleepers. The solution is a new design called “aerotraviesa” that will increase the speed of the BIRD. The problem is that theory is one thing, and practice another. a physical problem. Spain plays in the high speed major league and, in it, Renfe opera four types of trains. The Alvia and Avant reach 250 km/h. The Avlo and the AVE reach 300 km/h. However, the machines are prepared to reach higher speeds, the aforementioned 350 km/h. The problem is in physics. When a train exceeds a certain speed, 300 km/h, a phenomenon called ‘ballast flight’ occurs. This implies that the underside of the train generates turbulence that creates areas of low pressure on the track. This causes the passage of the train to vibrate the stones, the ballast, lifting them and causing them to collide against the underside of the train or settle on the tracks and sleepers themselves. Furthermore, at more than 300 km/h, the possible bumps on the journey increase. Air traverses. That’s where a new sleeper design comes into play that the company itself Adif presented a few years ago. Instead of a flat crossbar, a traditional rectangle, the central part of it has a more rounded design. Adif affirms This modifies the velocity field on the ballast in the area between the sleepers, minimizing the presence of ballast particles, and the key points are: Reduces 21% of the aerodynamic load in the space immediately above the ballast bed. The design allows increasing the distance between the ballast level and the upper face of the sleeper. It has no higher manufacturing or handling costs (they are still molds). And most importantly: the aerodynamic load generated by a train at 330 km/h on a track with current sleepers is equivalent to that generated by the same train at 370 km/h, but with aero sleepers. AV350 Plan. In short, the aerocrossers improve the aerodynamic performance of the infrastructure and there is another important fact: their use allows an increase of 12% in the operating speed of the train. And it is not just theory, since Spain wants to start installing overhead traverses to improve the speed of the AVE. A few weeks ago, Óscar Puente, Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, advertisement that the Madrid-Barcelona line will be the first to have these overhead traverses. The result? Reach the maximum speed of the original design of the infrastructure, which is 350 km/h. Currently, the AVE reaches those 300 km/h due to the physical limitations mentioned above. This will allow us to go from the two hours and 37 minutes of the AVE that currently takes the least time to less than two hours. Puente highlighted that the design of the aerocrosses is pioneer in the world. The Polytechnic University of Madrid, Adif and SENER constituted a consortium to develop this technology and obtained the patent in March 2014, achieving international protection in Europe, Saudi Arabia and the United States. There are countries that have faced the ballast problem in other ways, Germany covering the ballast with concrete, for example. Arching an eyebrow. Increasing the speed of the train by changing the sleepers sounds great. The problem is that there are some aspects to consider. On the one hand, the cost-benefit debate not only because of what the investment will mean in changing all the sleepers, but also because of the maintenance of certain train materials that will suffer more than now. Driving at 350 km/h exponentially increases the wear of both the wheels and the catenary, regardless of whether the ballast causes no damage to the train, or causes less. On the other hand, not only the sleepers come into play, but also the own land. A bump at 300 km/h can be annoying, at 350 km/h it can be something more. Or two. And, beyond whether it is worth the investment to gain half an hour or what will happen with those possible technical problems, the big question is what happens with the rest of Spain. It is estimated that the Madrid-Barcelona section in which these air crossings begin to be applied will take about two years to complete. At a rate of 800 sleepers changed per day and 1,666 sleepers per kilometer, the work is of great magnitude. And it is clear that it is a congested route and that it is seeing a boom in the number of travelers, but while that line is reinforced, the connection with other parts of the peninsula remains neglectedlike the train to Soria, Teruel or the perennial case of Extremadura. Images | Xataka, Adif In Xataka | AVLO’s departure from Madrid-Barcelona seemed like another problem for Renfe. He has left us an unexpected winner

In the search for a supersonic train, China tests a Maglev that will reach 4,000 km/h. The problem will be maintaining it

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China’s conquest of the high-speed train field is impressive. In the 2008 Beijing Olympicsthe country had just 120 kilometers of high speed between Beijing and Tianjin. 17 years latermanage more high-speed kilometers than any other countrya very long distance from Spain or Japan. They are not only building kilometers to unite the entire country: they are developing technologies so that the plane is no longer necessary. As? With Maglev trains at speeds of 1,000 km/h. And a specific model, the T-Flight, which dreams of 4,000 km/h. Maglev + Hyperloop. China is one of the countries, along with Japan, that is investing a lot of money in the development of the magnetic levitation trainsor Maglev. This technology allows trains not to rest their wheels on the rails, but rather to float thanks to a series of powerful magnets and an electromagnetic field. This allows us to exceed the 250 km/h that has been set as a standard for high speed and, for example, China has the fastest Maglev in the worldone that reaches 431 km/h. It is already operational between Beijing and Shanghai, but in Japan is testing one that will exceed 600 km/h. It’s a speed that will seem slow compared to what CASIC is preparing. It stands for “China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation,” a state-owned tactical missile company that announced the T-Flight project in August 2017. The idea? Combine magnetic levitation trains with Hyperloop-style vacuum tubes. T-Flight. In short, it is putting a Maglev in a vacuum tube, eliminating air pressure and resistance as much as possible, but there is much more. For example, the idea of CASIC is that magnetic levitation is enhanced thanks to superconductors that will raise the train up to 100 mm above the rail. Conventional Maglevs are raised by about 10 mm, and the idea is that the higher the train is, the more stability it will have at extreme speeds. On the other hand, the tube itself, with a system that extracts air from it to create a low pressure environment, reducing aerodynamic resistance to the maximum. This partial vacuum and levitation that eliminates the physical resistance of the wheel and track is what will allow unprecedented speeds to be achieved. Achievements. In 2024 they already achieved one first validated test as a world record by reaching 623 km/h, but in the summer of this year, in a low pressure environment, The train reached 650 km/h in seven seconds in its laboratory. They were strange tests, since the track was a kilometer long when the usual thing is much longer, but that also gives us a clue of what brutal which is both the acceleration and braking of the train. That is, think that, in seven seconds and in just one kilometer, the train accelerated to 650 km/h and stopped. The team’s idea is to reach 800 km/h as the top speed this year, but the ambition goes much further. Ambition. Currently, the team is in Phase 1, which is the one that aims aim that speed of 1,000 km/h. To do this, and to validate the speed in real conditions, they want to extend the test track to 60 kilometers. However, the thing does not stop there and, when the project was born, it was already said that Phase 2 and Phase 3 would have as aim 2,000 km/h (almost double the cruising speed of a traditional commercial airplane) and 4,000 km/hsupersonic speeds that would compete with the fastest planes in the world. This would allow large urban centers in China to be linked in a few minutes, leaving aside the need to take planes to cover long distances. In fact, this high speed is already showing in Europe that short flights do not make sense if we combine the waiting time at the airport with the flight itself and compare it with the comfort of access to the train. A major challenge. Now, the goal will not be easy. Maglev technology works and is proven, but what they want to achieve with this T-Flight not only complicates things because, in addition to a track, a tube must be built. And, of course, maintain it. Extending this partial vacuum over hundreds of kilometers of tube represents an enormous technical challenge because it implies that the joints must be perfectly sealed, without the cold and heat dilating them so that there are no leaks. It is estimated that a 600 km pipe requires an expansion joint every 100 meters, and each one of them represents a potential point of failure. Furthermore, at 300 km/h appreciate vibrations in the seats. Air system to reduce pressure inside the tubes Furthermore, any decompression would be catastrophic and perhaps most importantly: there is no certification standard or safety protocols for something like this. In any case, T-Flight continues to take steps at a good pace and, although it seems difficult to see it working in the short term, if a country can achieve it right now… it is China. Images | Geely In Xataka | After 20 years, the definitive one arrives: Brazil prepares the first high-speed train in South America

a suitcase with wheels at 30 km/h

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Just a few days ago, Pere Navarro, director of the DGT, said that “The only way to access the cities will be by public transport“. These are words that a good part of the media has used to advance supposed prohibitions about which nothing has really been said. But they do reflect another battle: the battle for space. For years, European cities they have put up a battle with the cars and they are redistributing space. The large pedestrian areas such as those in Barcelona, ​​the mandatory ZBEs in Spain or the commitment to cycling in Paris are good examples. But it is a movement that has been brewing for decades. What happened to the Scalextric de Atocha? Did you know that Amsterdam was once part of the car paradise? These same debates were already taking place in Japan more than 30 years ago. And when one lives in overcrowded populations and with very high population densities, having or not having a car is no longer a question of purchasing power, it is a question of how that can impact our own environment. These questions of how many cars there should be in a city and what implications they have is what led Japan to implement the Shako Shomeishothe regulations that prevent you from buying a car if you do not have a secured parking space. At least in the busiest cities. In that same context were born the kei carespecially narrow and small cars with specific regulations to avoid being subject to taxes and that Shako Shomeisho that limits the purchase of vehicles. The concept wants to repeat in Europe although if it has triumphed in Japan it is because it is deeply rational, something that does not always go well with the European idea of ​​the automobile. And since in Japan the radically rational triumphs and they are decades ahead when it comes to space management, already in the 80s and 90s they were wondering what mobility solutions They could arrive in the future to move us around in a motorized vehicle, taking up as little space as possible. With those, Mazda pulled an ace up its sleeve. One in suitcase format. The Mazda Suitcase Car or the “suitcase car” The 90s had just begun and Mazda wanted to look for original mobility solutions. Playing the typical Futurology game that It is made in design centersthe Japanese company opened an internal competition to receive proposals for a groundbreaking vehicle. It is very likely that the executives who received Yoshimi Kanemoto were already expecting that the designer who led the Mazda Suitcase Car project would arrive with the proposal in a suitcase. We imagine, of course, that not in the way they expected. Because that suitcase did not hide sketches, design games or feasibility studies. What he was hiding was the very vehicle that had been requested. With the help of Kanemoto, a group of engineers gave life to the Mazda Suitcase Cara small three-wheeled vehicle that moved thanks to a two-stroke engine. The chassis? The suitcase itself, of course. And it is in the same suitcase where the humble apparatus of the vehicle is stored in which the… driver sits? Or pilot, rather. In this video You can see how it has just enough space to store the engine, the tank and the three wheels. Once assembled, it is as simple as getting on and starting to roll, driving this kind of three-wheeled kart with a handlebar that includes a handle to give gas, like on a motorcycle. The prototype, obviously, did not reach production but it was an example of how far technology could go to miniaturize the components necessary to make a vehicle roll. The company itself explains that the prototype was born as an idea to anticipate what vehicles would be like in the year 2020. For its Japanese designer, we would move in a 57×75 cm Samsonite suitcase in which a small kart with the capacity to reach 30 km/h would be hidden. It’s no small thing. The idea, however, was presented outside Japan. In 1992, Associated Press photographed to one of the company’s executives riding the device in the middle of Times Square, in the days before a New York Auto Show. Obviously, the proposal went nowhere but we would have to ask Kanemoto what he thinks of those who cross half the world today to get on a kart, dress up as Mario Bross and ride through Tokyo traffic as if they were experiencing a Mario Kart race. Photos | Mazda In Xataka | Aboard the Mazda MX-5: It’s uncomfortable, it’s small, it’s loud, it’s charming, it’s unique, it’s cool

while the Madrid-Barcelona AVE goes at 350 km/h, the rest of the network languishes

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The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, has announced the tender for two feasibility studies with one objective: to carry out actions to improve the high-speed line (LAV) between Madrid and Barcelona to increase the speed of this corridor to 350 km/h. This will allow the journey between both cities to be made in less than two hours, but the problem is with the state of the railway network in the rest of the country. All focus in one line. Puente has explained that the reasons for focusing on this route are that “we need more capacity due to the increase in passengers on this line which, when it started, moved 2.2 million users and today there are 15 million, which means that 85% of the passenger share uses the train in this connection between cities and can still grow.” Vibrations. The modernization of the line that has already been carried out on the Madrid-Seville route is now urgently needed for the one that connects Madrid with Barcelona: it is already close to having been in service for 20 years and reports have appeared that point to an increase in vibrations between Madrid and Calatayud. Air traverses. For the renewal of the line, use will be made of a “unique Spanish technology in the world”, the aerotraviesa, which according to ADIF reduces the aerodynamic load in the space immediately above the ballast bed by 21%. This allows the operating speed of the train to increase by 12%: the aerodynamic load caused at 330 km/h by the current crossing would be equivalent to that generated by the aerocross at 370 km/h. New stations. The plan also includes new access variants to both cities and the construction of two new high-speed stations in Parla (connected to the Madrid Cercanías network) and in El Prat de Llobregat. A new access to the Chamartín station from the east and south is also proposed as an alternative to the existing tunnel. that connects this station with that of Atocha. In this way, the minister indicated, the capital will be provided with an alternative route to the existing tunnel for trains coming from throughout the Mediterranean and Andalusia. Impact on other lines. The Parla station will also have another purpose: to allow a connection with Madrid for all those services of the Madrid-Seville LAV and the Madrid-Levante LAV, with destination Madrid, in case of eventual incidents at the stations or in the standard gauge tunnel. Giving room for maneuver for the future. This action, the Ministry states, will improve the current capacity of the Torrejón de Velasco junction—through which more than 250 trains circulate daily—and absorb the increases in traffic expected with the entry into service of the Madrid-Extremadura-Portuguese Border High Speed ​​Line. the planned growth on the line between Madrid and Seville. The studies also include the construction of a new railway access that allows services to be provided from Lérida with origin and destination in Barcelona and without the need to circulate through Camp de Tarragona. sticking out chest. Minister Óscar Puente stated in the announcement that with this improvement Spain will become “the only country, together with Chinawhich has an infrastructure of these characteristics.” Not only that, it has compared the costs with that is supporting uk: “They have 40,000 million and do not have a single kilometer of track installed. There is talk of a project that will cost 100,000 million pounds for 250 kilometers. We will have invested, from the beginning (of high speed) until the end of this year, in 4,091 kilometers, around 70,000 million euros. We have the lowest cost per kilometer in the world.” Where can you travel in five hours by train from cities like Gijón, La Coruña or Badajoz? To Madrid, almost certainly… and little else. Source: Chronotrains. The problem is the rest of Spain. The improvement plan makes sense from the point of view of the growing demand on that route, but it once again penalizes the rest of the railway network, which does not have high-speed lines… or even lines. We already talked about how from Chronotrains It is possible to see how from Gijón, La Coruña or Badajoz (in the image) in five hours the train coverage is very poor, and the problem is repeated everywhere. The connection with Madrid is normally well covered: the problem is the connection between cities other than Madrid and Barcelona. Supply and demand. Here there must be a balance between supply and demand, and criticism is logical among those who see how other routes, even having a certain demand, they are neglected again and again. Platforms like “Soria NOW!” they manifested recently claiming that “the only train that passes through Soria is the one of excuses”, and the same thing happens with others like Teruel Exists or the concentrations that for years They demand a “decent train” in Extremadura, although in the latter region there is somewhat more hopeful newsand the AVE to Galicia is also proving to be a real success. Image | Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility In Xataka | The great Valencian “obrón” bears the name of Adif. Their last names: gas leak and fed up neighbors

The new arms race is being fought at more than 6,000 km/h. And America is late

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At more than 6,000 km/h there is no room to think twice. The new generation of hypersonic missiles operates in that speed range, a terrain in which the global military balance begins to shift. Russia and China they have already shown systems capable of flying above Mach 5. The United States, accustomed to setting the technological pace, moves forward with more doubts than it would like. The term “hypersonic” is not military marketing, but a clear category: devices that travel faster than five times the speed of sound. The real complexity comes with the trajectory. Unlike ballistic missiles, which ascend and descend in an arc, these systems can stay relatively low and change course in flight. This ability to maneuver, added to the thermal loads and ionization they suffer when passing through the atmosphere at such speed, explains why their development is so challenging. Hypersonic weapons enter the scene Russia was the first to proclaim operational capabilities. Its Avangard system, an intercontinental missile-launched glider vehicle, was announced for service in 2019 and Moscow claims it can carry a nuclear warhead. Experts in kyiv also claim that Russia used the zircon against the ukrainian capital in February 2024. China, for its part, demonstrated the DF-17 and tested the DF-27, which according to reports from 2023 flew about 2,100 kilometers in 12 minutes. In addition, it has shown the YJ-21, integrated into destroyers and bombers, consolidating a more visible deployment. The United States has focused on the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon. Dark Eagle has a range greater than about 1,725 ​​miles, that is, about 2,780 kilometers, and a first system valued at about 2.7 billion dollars, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The official plan aims to deploy it at the end of 2025, after a sequence of tests with failures in 2023 and 2024 that the GAO collected in June 2025. In August 2024, the CRS reported of the first satisfactory end-to-end flight. In parallel, the Navy is leading a common glider vehicle and the Air Force is working on an air-launched glider and a cruise ship with DARPA. The hypersonic threat tests the most fragile link in modern defense: time. The radar has less useful horizon at low altitude and Trajectory changes break prediction patterns. Furthermore, the dynamics of flight itself generate phenomena that can complicate detection. The forces trying to stop these systems are working on layers of sensors, more advanced tracking algorithms and more agile data links, but it is a challenge that is not yet solved. What sets hypersonic weapons apart is not just their performance, but the effect they have on the logic of deterrence. The impossibility of knowing what type of cargo they are carrying until impact creates fertile ground for misunderstandings. The United States assures that its development focuses on conventional ammunition, but rivals such as Russia and China have shown systems directly linked to their nuclear arsenal, which fuels distrust. Faced with this scenario, the allies are rearming their surveillance and defense architecture. In 2022, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia expanded their cooperation within the framework of AUKUS to include “hypersonics and counter-hypersonics“, with emphasis on distributed sensors, shared intelligence and new interceptors. The objective is not only to have equivalent missiles, but to build a system capable of detecting threats in early phases and coordinating the response between different military nodes. The focus is on the next deployment milestones and on validating that this cooperation translates into real capabilities. Today, the initial advantage is not on the American side, and that realization has already had an effect on its military planning. Russia and China have moved first and have forced Washington to accelerate decisions and prioritize resources in the middle of a year of technological validation. It remains to be seen whether the deployment planned for this year consolidates a balance or confirms the gap. Images | People’s Liberation Army | Russian Aerospace Forces In Xataka | China promised them very happy with the catapult system of its new aircraft carrier. Until the US took a look

In 1896 a man decided to lead to the reckless speed of 13 km/h. And received the first fine in history

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Speed ​​fines in Spain vary from 100 at 600 euros. The table in which the economic amount is collected also serves if the driver will also be punished with the subtraction of driving card points. In the best case, the sanction It does not entail the subtraction of points, while in the worst you can detract a maximum of six. All this information can be consulted in your own DGT website or in the Traffic LawMotor vehicles and road safety. And it is useful, according to data from Associated European motoriststwo out of three fines that are imposed in Spain are motivated by speeding. But although speeding fines look like something modern, what is necessary to invest most sophisticated media To register the infraction and judicially demonstrate the breakdown of the norms, its history begins before The first car in Spain will enroll. The first fine of history for speeding Fines for committing some kind of Flying infraction They have a lot of history. Some suggest that the first punishment related to a traffic infraction was recorded in Egypt more than 2,800 years ago, after a drunk driver run over a girl and collided with a statue. However, the basis of this information is, at least, doubtful. But what is a general consensus is in the registration of the first penalty for speeding. In fact, those responsible for Guinness Record They make it record as the early infraction of this type. And they put date: January 28, 1896. The fine also has a name, surname and place of origin. Specifically, the offender was Walter Arnold who in the United Kingdom, and fully aware of what was played, promoted one of the first cars built by Karl Benz until the devilish speed of 13 km/h. Arnold exceeded the streets of Paddock Wood at full speed, in Kent Count “Horses without horses”. Arnold had broken four rules in a single moment: Drive a car without horses along a public street Drive a car without horses without the intervention of three people Do not show the name and direction of the vehicle Quadruplica the maximum permitted speed Yes, according to the fine, Arnold was traveling at a speed of 8 mph (about 13 km/h) when the maximum allowed limit was 2 mph. Of the means to calculate this speed, nothing is said. What we do know is that the result was immediate. Put before Justice, Arnold was convicted of each and every one of the accusations that were awarded. What Arnold had in mind is that the payment of 4.7 pounds were just an investment. With his stumbling he showed that the speed limits were completely outdated for those Combustion vehicles And, therefore, shortly after the speed limit was extended to reasonable 14 mph (just over 22 km/h). But this was not here. Arnold, in addition, was known for its handling of vehicles. He got the license to sell in the United Kingdom the vehicles of Karl Benz slightly modified with a local production under the name of Arnold Motor Carriage. A car with which he managed to win in the first race of emancipation in it was linked to London with Brighton (separated by 87 kilometers) and served to multiply car sales. The first fine was, in short, a marketing trick. In Xataka | The Mercedes T80, the car mounted on the engine of a hunt with which Hitler wanted to reach 750 km/h Photo | Clare Black and Knowledge of London

How Turin’s beast reached 212 km/h in 1913

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The beginning of the 20th century were wonderful for engineering and mechanics lovers. Taking the first steps in this temporal field, the Wright brothers became famous with the First airplane in history. In 1908, the Ford Model T entered the production chain, Despite disbelief Henry Ford’s own lawyer. And shortly after, Fiat would break the barrier of the 200 km/h.While in Spain the registered cars arrived with dropper, Fiat had ambitious plans for their cars. Since the automotive began to take off, speed records and the first car races had become an obsession and a way of demonstrating the latest technological advances. They were a perfect sign of what each manufacturer was able to do. It is considered that First career in history covered the distance between Paris and Rouen. 127 kilometers that should decide who was the best in “The carriage race without horses”. It was July 22, 1894 and that day the Steam cars. Despite this, in The avant -garde They rescue a previous case dated in 1887 but that is not considered competition because, at the time of truth, only a vehicle was presented in the exit line. And in search of new challenges, Fiat launched the race to become the manufacturer with the fastest car in the world. And he succeeded in December 1913 when he reached 212.87 km/h of peak speed. A record that, however, has remained in the digital file and on paper because it never received the official “fastest car in the world” title. Fiat S76, Turin’s beast that ran out of crown On horseback between the nineteenth and twentieth century, in 1899 the Italian Fabbrica Automobili Torino. Fiat grows during the first years of life with the production of cars but quickly diversifies their business entering the railroad market and heavy transport, with their own trucks. But in the brand they were aware of the importance it had break milestones. With the automotive in embryonic state, getting new records or winning the victory in the few races that then existed were a tremendous opportunity to make known. Therefore, in 1910 they decided to create a monstrous car for which there were no insurmountable challenges. And they did it in the only way they knew: a gigantic engine. Fiat’s idea was to create a car that was all gross power. His engine was four -cylinder but his displacement was 28.4 liters. To get a better idea, A modern sport that exceeds eight liters of displacement is already something totally exceptional. The engine was able to generate up to 290 horsepower at 1900 rpm, had three spark plugs per cylinder and was cooked by water. The problem is that its weight was fired at almost 1,700 kg in what was a rarity for the time. Of course, if we get one, we can drive it without the need to acquire the B+ card that arises in Brussels. However, you have to contextualize it in your time. Barney Oldfieldaboard a Blitzen Benz He had achieved 212 km/h. If a four -cylinder and 21.5 -liter engine had worked for him, the answer should be to get an even larger engine. The way to follow was clear and Fiat stepped on with two Fiat S67 units, which is considered to be Turin’s beast. In The Old Motor They collect fragments of Fiat Book by Michael Sedgwickwhere the brand’s story is told and where they explain that Fiat S76 was “one of the most scary creations emanating from any factory.” Sedgwick explains that, After trying it in TurinThey found that the car had potential. There he reached 185 km/h in second march. It was time to launch for the record. The car was transferred to the Brooklands track(England) for Pietro Bordino to try to achieve what no one had reached until then. However, Bordino feared for his life and refused to take the car beyond the 90 mph (145 km/h). Next to the sea, in Saltburn Sands, Fiat again achieved speeds of 185 km/h. However, not the author explains that they did not find the right place, because there was not enough distance for the Fiat S76 to display its entire potential. Discarded Italy and England, Ostend, in Belgium, and Arthur Duray, as a pilot, were the chosen protagonists. It was about reaching the Germans. And there they got it, where they marked a peak speed of 212.87 km/h. However, the organized race was round trip and a fault prevented Fiat S76 from covering the route in the maximum allowed time. Turin’s beast had an informal record. Unfortunately, World War I passed over the Fiat S76, which had to be dismantled. Despite this, little by little a unit has been recovered and, completely restored, In 2019 it was dropped by Goodwood where he covered the entire circuit of the climb to one of the most famous hills in the motor world. The video puts the hair on end. In the images you can see how the body is twisted with engine violence. It is impressive to see the flares that come out on the sides of the vehicle. Sedgwick assured that Turin’s beast was going through the city “shooting flames in the faces of innocent pedestrians and deafening them. “We do not doubt it. Photos | Goodwood and Matthew Lamb In Xataka | The Mercedes T80, the car mounted on the engine of a hunt with which Hitler wanted to reach 750 km/h

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