Is the myth about pennies penetrating the sidewalk if they are tossed off the Empire State building true?

Question

I think that this was covered on myth busters but I don't have cable tv and missed the episode.

Answer 1

It isn't true; they have too much air resistance and would tumble. The Straight Dope has a column on this topic.

Having said that, a streamlined piece of mass that will fall straight, dropped from a much higher altitude, will penetrate. In Vietnam, there was a munition that was simply dropped from B-52's, from a height of five miles. This was called the 'lazy dog'. It looked like a bullet removed from the brass casing, with little vestigial fins on it to make it fall straight down.

They were dropped over Vietnamese villages; I suppose in areas where there were high concentrations of Viet Cong. In the morning, many many persons who had been lying peacefully asleep on their bamboo huts were found dead or wounded. Due to the lack of report as with gunpowder weapons, they were given the poetic name (translated from the Vietnamese) 'silent rain of death'.

Answer 2

Hmmm, a myth by definition is not true but this is a good question anyway.

We have to consider: is the mass of a penny, traveling at terminal velocity have enough force to punch through a sidewalk? Or even kill someone if dropped on their head (the popular form we heard as kids.)

The answer is that a penny has insufficient mass break human skin or dent concrete sidewalks, even when fired by a rifle. A penny weighs approximately 3.1 grams or about 1/10 of an ounce. It's too light to do any damage of this sort.

Answer 3

The empire state construction is 381 metres extreme. that is more advantageous than adequate time for a penny to achieve terminal velocity. If the the penny were to then hit someone on the top it would more advantageous than absolutely kill them from the impression. extra to the point, why would you've a penny interior the united states of a?

Answer 4

No a penny would not penetrate concrete if tossed off the Empire State building. Due to the penny's relatively small mass, its momentum at terminal velocity would not be great enough for it to penetrate concrete. It would not even be able to penetrate your skull, were it to land on your head. At best, it would break the skin and give you a head ache.

Answer 5

http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythbusters/about/about.html?clik=fanmain_leftnav

I don't know the answer, but here is the MythBusters website and you can check it out yourself. I looked on the site and the only episode I saw on pennies was will a penny dropped from a skyscraper kill someone, but nothing about penetrating a sidewalk.
(They did determine that it wouldn't even penetrate the skin on a human, so I am guessing that, no, it would not penetrate cement)

Good luck finding your answer---sorry I couldn't help more!

Answer 6

Yeah, it was on MythBusters.

What they did was determined how fast it would travel by the time it hit the ground. So instead of actually doing just that, they determined that the speed could be duplicated by shooting a penny out of a nail gun. The rigged the tip of the nail gun to accept a penny, then shot it at their "dummy" (Which COULD be either of the hosts. Both qualify. lol) When minimal damage was inflicted, they decided to try it on themselves. They said it stung a bit, but definatly not capable of killing someone.

Answer 7

I dont know about penetrating the concrete but it would be travelling very fast at terminal velocity. It would probably kill someone if it hit them in the head.

Answer 8

It doesn't kill a person either. What if you attached a 2 cm long dental floss on the edge and put a tip of a pin on the opposite end. Will it hurt someone if it landed on his/her head?

Answer 9

No! The air resistance would slow it down to maybe 100 miles an hour but probably less. That is enough to smart, but no more.

Answer 10

Mythbusters said it would hurt and maybe penetrate the skin but you wouldn't die.

I loveee the Mythbusters!