From: Raleigh McLemore (raleighmclemore@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Jan 25 2003 - 11:33:19 PST
Message-ID: <20030125193319.82663.qmail@web40204.mail.yahoo.com> Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 11:33:19 -0800 (PST) From: Raleigh McLemore <raleighmclemore@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: Objects Dropped from Tall Buildings
Go Ben. Good ideas to think about. Increasingly it
becomes difficult to find the time to stray from
whatever the hell we are testing on though. You may
want to invest in my planned start up company "Testing
based Assessment Education Products".
On modeling the energy of a penny I agree that it will
not cause much damage unless it hits someone in the
eye or something. It seems impossible for me to
imagine a penny actually flying across a football
field in one second though...just seems to fast.
If you want some ideas on impact modeling you could
use Knox gelatin, good because you can see the trail
of the object as it tumbles when it penetrates and can
identify the angle of entry. For a gruesome look at
modeling this stuff go to September, 1976 American
Journal of Physics where Luis Alvarez throws his lot
in against Oswald on the Kenney Assassination. He used
a melon wrapped in fiberglass strapping tape (Scotch
strapping tape works) to shoot into. His experiments
(in San Leandro) show that the motion of Kennedy's
head was consistant with a shot from behind. No, no,
lets not start talking about this on Pinhole.
If you want to have another rather gruesome follow up
you could buy a hog head and drop pennies on it. While
not a living model it might be instructive. In fact if
one of your students is really asleep you could carry
him or her outside beneath a window and...forget it.
With firm handshake,
Raleigh
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