Imagine you are on the observation deck at the top of the Eiffel Tower. You spot a girl make a wish and toss a penny over the edge of the building. Suddenly, you see and pedestrian below get hit by the penny and appears to have collapsed. He is dead.
Although this is a classic urban legend, is it true? Ever since the creation of skyscrapers, this story has existed. The myth first came about when the Empire State Building was being built. Construction workers would make jokes about dropping pennies off the top. Since then, people have thought that if a penny is dropped at the top of the building, it would gather enough velocity to go through the skull of a pedestrian below, killing them instantaneously or make a dent in the sidewalk. Despite efforts to test this, a penny has never been dropped off of the Empire State Building due to security reasons involving this myth.
A test done by 20/20, a news program on ABC, as well as a test done by Myth Busters show that this myth is only a myth. A penny only weighs about one gram and as it falls, it tumbles. Because there is so much air resistance and the penny is not very aerodynamic, it will never gather enough speed to kill a person. As Myth Busters calculated, the fastest the penny could go, or its terminal velocity is about 65 miles per hour. The speed of the penny isrelatively slow and if you are hit, it will feel like you are being hit by a bug.
This myth, on the other hand, does have a grain of truth. Why do you think construction workers wear helmets? If the object is much heavier like a nut or bolt that weighs about 50 grams or an aerodynamic ball point pen, it can speed up to a couple miles an hour which can be extremely dangerous and in
that case may kill a person. For example, a bullet weighs about 5 to 10 grams and can go from 800 to 2000 miles per hour depending on the type of gun as well as the type of bullet and the amount of gun powder. A bullet can defiantly kill a person and so can a relatively large object that is dropped off a skyscraper.If one penny is dropped off the Eiffel Tower, it can go to about 65 mile per hour. That means it will have a little less than one foot-pound of energy when it hits the ground, which may hurt a little. If it is a 50 gram nut or a roll of 50 pennies, and were to fall 1000 feet, it would be the energy of 100 foot-pounds. So if you were to get hit in the head with that… well let’s hope you have a helmet on.
Videos from youtube.com
Penny photo from istockphoto.com
Eiffel tower photo from travelhouseuk.com
10 comments:
I think that this a very interesting and funny myth. If someone were to tell me that this was true, I would question their sanity. A penny is tiny! There would be no way that it could kill someone, even from great heights. The fact that some people thought that the penny would leave a dent in the sidewalk also makes me laugh. Watch out everyone, you could be killed by a flying penny.
I agree with you Livya, it is absolutely ridiculous that some people believed a penny could shatter a person's skull when dropped form a tall building. The penny's mass is so little than it's not even going to make that loud of a noise when it strikes the ground.
I agree, but what is interesting is that I was talking about that myth with a bunch of friends, and they all thought it was true. It's really interesting to see what people believe without actually thinking about it. When you do think about it, it's pretty obvious. And I agree with you, Bipul, there is absolutely no chance it could shatter your skull. It might not even break the skin!
Rizzo- I would have definitely been in the same boat as your friends. I remember when I was little, someone told me this myth and ever since I have believed it. I don't think that it is that ridiculous to believe though, because if something like a nut or bolt or ballpoint pen could seriously hurt a person, a penny isn't to extremely different from that.
i agree with casers54 and Rizzo. I have always been told that a penny falling from a tall building could hurt and even kill u! For some reason i kept hearing it so i always believed it! Im glad to know now though, that it isn't true, and now that i think about it, it seems silly that i would actually believe such a myth. A penny is so small, and like bipulg said, its not even going to make a noise when it hits the ground.
Livya and Bipulg, you say that it seems silly that people think that a penny can kill you but when i went around and surveyed the class about it, 9 people said that it could kill you and 3 said that it couldn't. I guess most people just believe what they hear and don't really think about it logically. And Rizzo, its so weird cause my friends and i were discussing this on Friday too and they thought that the myth was true. Creepy...
Kitkatbar
I don't really find it suprising that nine people said it was true because I sort of beleived it. I mean bullets are really small but if they are going fast enough they can kill people so I sort of thought if pennies got up enough speed they could kill someone too. Plus if you hear it from a lot of people you sort of start to believe it. Thanks for posting this.
I am actually suprised with this. I thought that it was true but apparently its not. I only thought it was true because i have heard it multiple times but now that you think of it a penny is very small and something that little should not be able to kill a person.
I thought it was true also because at cedar point you are not aloud to have pennies on rides like the power tower. You should send this to the people there.
I guess I can understand that people would think that a penny could kill someone if they weren't really thinking about it. What I don't get is how the people who ponder the question for more than a few minutes would still think that a penny could kill someone.
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