I got into an interesting discussion at work the other day about tires. The whole thing came about because last week my bro-in-law, Jimmy, brought up the idea that the tire on a car is going faster than the car at the top of the tire and the bottom of the tire is going zero mph. At first it didn't make sense to me, but the more I thought about it the more confused I became. The guys at work thought I was crazy, but they were wrong.

The idea is really pretty simple. First, it must be noted that we are always speaking of the tire in terms of speed relative to the speed of the car. The bottom of the tire has to be going zero because it is touching the street. The street is going zero, therefore the tire is going zero. If the tire were going a different speed than the street it would be skidding, but because you are not always skidding it must be going zero. The bottom of the tire is always going backwards relative to the car. The top of the tire is always going forward relative to the car and therefore the top of the tire is going faster than the car. The exact center of the tire and all parts of the tire in an exact horizontal line are going the same speed as the car.

Really, this doesn't matter one bit. It's interesting to think about but I don't know why. Half the people here at work are still not convinced - they think the whole tire is going the same speed because of the rotation of the tire. They are right, but we aren't talking about the speed of the rotation. We are talking about the speed of the top and bottom of the tire in relation to the car.

Why must this be so complicated? The mind boggles...