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A Straight Dope Classic from Cecil's storehouse of human knowledge
23-Oct-1981
Dear Cecil:
I have this friend and he isn't playing with a full deck, if you know what I mean, and he
said if you drop a penny from the top of the Empire State Building and it happened to hit
someone in the head it would go through just like that. Is this true? --Joe D., Towson,
Maryland
Dear Joe:
I'm explaining this only on condition you don't try the experiment yourself.
Given that the Empire State Building is 1,250 feet tall and ignoring such factors as wind
resistance for the moment, a penny dropped from the top would hit the ground in
approximately 8.8 seconds, having reach a speed of roughly 280 feet per second.
This is not particularly fast. A low-powered .22 or .25 caliber handgun bullet, to which a
penny is vaguely comparable in terms of mass, typically has a muzzle velocity of 800 to
1,100 FPS, with maybe 75 foot-pounds of energy.
On top of this we must consider that the penny would probably tumble while falling, and
that the Empire State Building, like all tall buildings, is surrounded by strong updrafts.
As a result the penny's descent would be substantially slowed.
Thus while you might conceivably inflict a fractured skull on some hapless New Yorker (or,
more likely, some cretinous tourist from Towson), the penny would not "go through
just like that." I bet it wouldn't even penetrate the skin. Not that I intend to find
out.
For the record, the Empire State folks claim no one has ever dropped anything off their
building. Yeah, right.
--CECIL ADAMS
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