Date:         Wed, 12 Oct 94 14:04:22 PDT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         David Schwarze <schwarze@io.nosc.mil>
Subject:      Re: Hoping to buy a hauler, single or double cab.

William Abbott writes:
> 
> 	John Richie, drunks and the drugged are usually limp and survive
> the impacts that kill their victims. With a 50 MPH limit, its possible
> that the impact speed between the two vehicles was over 100 MPH...

Some friends and I were discussing this at work.

Question:  Which is more likely to cause injury to a driver:

	A.  Driver runs car into a brick wall at 50 mph
	B.  Driver has headon collision with another car going 50mph 
	    (combined speed 100mph)

Assumption and hint: The wall is made out of steel with bricks painted
on it and will not move or absorb 

Answer:  neither is more likely to cause injury.  Reasoning: in case B
there are *two* crumple zones and each absorbs half of the energy.  If
you have trouble picturing this, just imagine if both of the cars in
case B ran into a wall from opposite sides simultaneously.  Looks like
2 x case A, doesn't it??  :)

Oh, and I don't think that 2 cars traveling at 50 mph contain as much 
kinetic energy as 1 car traveling at 100mph.  I remember something 
about 1/2mv^2...

Here's another question, but please don't answer it on the list.
Say you're on a boat in a lake.  You have an iron cannonball in the
boat with you.  If you were to throw the cannonball overboard, would
the water level of the lake go up or down?? 

-David

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David Schwarze			'73 VW Safare Custom Camper (Da Boat)
SAIC Comsystems, San Diego	'73 Capri GT 2800 (Da Beast)
schwarze@nosc.mil		'87 Mustang Lx 5.0 (Da Bruiser?  Soon...)
=============================================================================