Science Can Kill!

text:      Tabitha Esther

art:        Mike Force

---

Science can kill the shit out of you.  And Science can save your life!

“No, not Science!”

Yes, yes Science. Let’s take a look at some of the hazards Science encompasses:

Hurricanes = SCIENCE!
Asteroids = SCIENCE!
Global Warming = SCIENCE!
Falling down the stairs = SCIENCE!
AIDS = SCIENCE!

However, hope is not lost! You can combat Science by learning about it, by getting inside the head of your enemy. You must learn about Science in order to survive. Let’s start right now, by learning some basic science: Kinematics - the study of bodies in motion!

The Set-Up: You’ve been involved in an altercation with your drug dealer about how much coke you got in your 8-ball (3.5 grams, folks). A skirmish ensued and your gun “accidentally” went off in his chest. Now you’ve got a dead body on your hands and nowhere to go but down… It just so happens that you are on the rooftop of a four-story building.

You panic: You can’t just waltz down the stairwell with a dead body slung over your shoulders. What are you gonna do? You car is parked below, why don’t you just throw the body down there, pack him in the trunk, drive out to the desert and voila… problem solved! But what if your deceased drug dealer explodes on impact like the organ sack he is? You have to determine the force of impact on his body before you chuck him over the side.

To do this calculation, you only need to know a few things:

1.) How much your drug dealer weighs
2.) How high up you are
3.) That gravitational acceleration is 9.8 meters/s²
4.) How far into the ground the dealer’s body will penetrate once you drop him.

---

Assume that each floor of the building is 4 meters high (1 meter is about 3 feet, so we’re talking 48 feet above ground); therefore the height of the roof is 16 meters. Your dealer is a fatty and tips the scale at 100kg (about 220 pounds).  Assume that your dealer’s body will dent the ground just a little on impact. We’ll say 5 centimeters (0.05 meters).
 

Before we go any further, let me explain the key players we’re going to exploit in order to solve this problem: Potential Energy and Kinetic Energy. Potential energy deals with where you are. If you are at the top of a rollercoaster or the rooftop of a building (as we are) you have a lot of Potential energy. The true definition of Potential Energy is mass times gravitational acceleration times height.

---

Think of the film Rush Hour: Potential Energy is Chris Tucker and Kinetic Energy is Jackie Chan. Potential Energy isn’t doing anything but whining and threatening you with what might happen while kinetic energy delivers a roundhouse kick to your face.

---

We can calculate the velocity of your dealer’s body on impact by equating the Potential Energy and the Kinetic Energy. You see, at the rooftop your dealer’s body is chock full of Potential Energy, but he’s not moving yet so he has zero Kinetic Energy. But once he hits all of his Potential Energy is converted to Kinetic Energy. So we can solve for impact by saying…

---

---

I’ll give you a reference point: if a 700 pound motorcycle going 60 mph crashes into a tree, the force exerted on the tree is about 380,000 Newtons.  That’s only a bit more force than our drug dealer’s body hitting the sidewalk.

If you throw that body off the roof there’s a good chance you’re going to make a mess.   Depending on torso trauma, he’ll probably splat on that sidewalk like a rotten tomato. Chief’s advice: don’t do it!  Play it cool, put your jacket over his bloody torso, and make like he’s Bernie, all blacked-out drunk, as you walk him down the building’s stairwell.

You’ll get away with it because you’ve got Science on your side!

---

Learn more Science on a tri-weekly basis at pariskillton.blogspot.com

References:
Giancoli, (2000), Physics for Scientists and Engineers, 3rd edition, Prentice Hall
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hframe.html

---