# What's the fastest we've ever spun anything? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 19, 2013, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fastest-weve-ever-spun-anything/666638 "2013-08-19T13:57:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fastest-weve-ever-spun-anything/666638/21 "2013-08-20T15:30:43Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > Sophia Lucia completed 55 consecutive pirouettes And somewhere, the last tiny bit of _White Nights_ that had not become outdated cried. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fastest-weve-ever-spun-anything/666638/22 "2013-08-21T01:19:02Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > Per [this video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQLtcEAG9v0), 308 RPM on ice skates. They claim Guinness noted it, but I haven’t confirmed that. > > If we mean ballet pirouettes, then [Sophia Lucia completed 55 consecutive pirouettes](http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/4000/most-consecutive-pirouettes-contemporary-dance) in March 2013. No info on how fast she was spinning, but I’m sure it was slower than the ice skater… Well, the way I phrased the question, I was including someone stuck in a spinning-in-place machine with the dial cranked way up, not just human-powered spinning. Seems like a test that someone would have done at some point. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fastest-weve-ever-spun-anything/666638/23 "2013-08-21T01:35:58Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Yeah, but that’s only 1,000,000 rps. Yeah, but it’s 3,600,000,000 rph! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fastest-weve-ever-spun-anything/666638/24 "2013-08-21T04:50:12Z")
Possibly an astronaut-to-be in a multi-axis trainer, then? ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fastest-weve-ever-spun-anything/666638/25 "2013-08-21T15:57:24Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Oh, I should also ask if we’re restricting to man-made things, and also just what counts as a “thing”. The surfaces of neutron stars are moving at relativistic speeds, and in so far as a rotational speed can be defined for the surface of a rotating black hole, it’s c or very close to it. 😕 I’m trying to reconcile that with what I read here: > **[Neutron star | Rotation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_star#Rotation)** > > Neutron stars rotate extremely rapidly after their formation due to the conservation of angular momentum; in analogy to spinning ice skaters pulling in their arms, the slow rotation of the original star's core speeds up as it shrinks. A newborn neutron star can rotate many times a second. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fastest-weve-ever-spun-anything/666638/26 "2013-08-21T18:22:16Z")
Well, for a small value of “relativistic”, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fastest-weve-ever-spun-anything/666638/27 "2013-08-21T20:19:26Z")
Presumably, there’s some hard upper limit for this (unattainable by anything mechanical that we could make, no doubt) - something like a circle of radius (or maybe circumference) of one Planck length, rotating for a rim speed of c? ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fastest-weve-ever-spun-anything/666638/28 "2013-08-21T21:12:48Z")
Not the fastest, but worth mentioning, is the [XF-84H](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_XF-84H); an experimental aircraft of the 1950s. To address the limitations of early jet aircraft, this was a turboprop where the tips of the propeller blades spun at Mach 1.18. There’s a reason you’ve never heard of it. Several reasons, in fact. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2013, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fastest-weve-ever-spun-anything/666638/29 "2013-08-21T22:58:21Z")
Are some of those several reasons embedded in the turboprop’s housing? ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fastest-weve-ever-spun-anything/666638/30 "2013-08-28T14:39:37Z")
Relevant news [article](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-23861397) this morning: [QUOTE=BBC] A team of researchers claims to have created the world’s fastest spinning man-made object. They were able to levitate and spin a microscopic sphere at speeds of up to 600 million revolutions per minute. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fastest-weve-ever-spun-anything/666638/31 "2013-09-14T12:50:38Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > Relevant news [article](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-23861397) this morning: [Here is an interview with the folks that did it.](http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews_interviews_Dr._Michael_Mazilu_on_creating_world%27s_fastest_spinning_manmade_object) ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fastest-weve-ever-spun-anything/666638/32 "2013-09-14T20:05:36Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > That might depend on what you count as a “thing being spun”. Does a plane flying in a circle count? How about something in orbit? That’s exactly what I was thinking when I clicked on this thread. Gravitational slingshot, to be exact. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-fastest-weve-ever-spun-anything/666638.md?page=1)