I didn't know where to put this so feel free to move it.

I can think of numerous examples in the books where these three things don't add up. I'll give an example, in the first book Eragon while standing on the star rose Eragon says that the floor is mile below however later in the same book says that it takes ten minutes to reach the floor. Now this seems ridiculous considering the fastest humans can run a mile in under four minutes in fact most human can run a mile in less than ten. Other than that the figures for this near vertical slide just don't add up. Acceleration due to gravity is roughly 10 m/s^2 and mile is roughly 1610m which means falling a mile from standstill will take around 18 seconds and top speed at the end of the mile will not surprisingly be 180 m/s. Clearly not a ten minute fall. Even factors such as friction and the gradient of the slide cut acceleration by 4 to 2.5 m/s^2 the entire fall should only take 35 seconds. Another point despite the fact that elves are supposed to be really fast in Brisingr running at full pelt Eragon covers a mile in four minutes and in our world there are human who are faster than that it dosen't seem that elves would really be that unbelievably fast. This raises a third point which is how fast dragons can fly in Eragon it mentions how Arya almost keeps pace with Saphira looking at the above elves aren't really that fast so it would seem that dragon's aren't either.

Please Comment on my thoughts and post screw-ups you have noticed from the books involving distances, speeds and time here.

Looking back Eragon was wearing leather armour when he ran the mile in 4 minutes so we can assume the average elf is a little bit faster than the fastest human however still not as fast as the impression we get of them in the books.

Yes but when Eragon went from the dragon hold to the floor Eragon wasn't running down steps he was in an almost vertical slide... Or if your talking about the time he ran a mile in 4 minutes he wasn't going up steps but running through the halls in fathen dur.

IM not even sure anymore. But I agree with AC. BUt seriously give CP a break this was only in his first book.