Man linked/arrested to death from 'falling bullet'

[tyler811]

For your reading pleasure

 

[Winchester]

At least he turned himself in even on a speculation that he might have done it.

EDIT: Fla. Woman Falls To Death Attempting Handstand On Hotel Balcony On same page

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: naruto1988
wow. just wow. i always thought this would happen someday.

It happens all of the time in New Orleans.

 

[OutHouse]

Originally posted by: glugglug
If done properly, firing a bullet into the air is completely safe. That is, you have to fire it close to straight up -- it will stay up longer and the air resistance will have more time to slow it down before it falls.

This guy fired it much closer to horizontal, which is how the bullet traveled over a mile horizontally on it's way up & down, which means less rise and fall time since the vertical component of the path is so much smaller, and less time for it to slow down.

Edit: well, not completely safe, but a bullet fired vertically will come back down slow enough to just cause minor injuries, like getting hit by a rock, not fatalities.

are you majoring in dumbass? tell you what. let me get a penny go untop of the sears tower and drop it on your head. im willing to bet you would die.

 

[MacBaine]

Originally posted by: Citrix

Originally posted by: glugglug
If done properly, firing a bullet into the air is completely safe. That is, you have to fire it close to straight up -- it will stay up longer and the air resistance will have more time to slow it down before it falls.

This guy fired it much closer to horizontal, which is how the bullet traveled over a mile horizontally on it's way up & down, which means less rise and fall time since the vertical component of the path is so much smaller, and less time for it to slow down.

Edit: well, not completely safe, but a bullet fired vertically will come back down slow enough to just cause minor injuries, like getting hit by a rock, not fatalities.

are you majoring in dumbass? tell you what. let me get a penny go untop of the sears tower and drop it on your head. im willing to bet you would die.

lololol

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: Citrix

Originally posted by: glugglug
If done properly, firing a bullet into the air is completely safe. That is, you have to fire it close to straight up -- it will stay up longer and the air resistance will have more time to slow it down before it falls.

This guy fired it much closer to horizontal, which is how the bullet traveled over a mile horizontally on it's way up & down, which means less rise and fall time since the vertical component of the path is so much smaller, and less time for it to slow down.

Edit: well, not completely safe, but a bullet fired vertically will come back down slow enough to just cause minor injuries, like getting hit by a rock, not fatalities.

are you majoring in dumbass? tell you what. let me get a penny go untop of the sears tower and drop it on your head. im willing to bet you would die.

Is my sarcasm meter busted again??
Anyway, I'm willing to bet I wouldn't. It's called terminal velocity.

 

[Savij]

Originally posted by: SludgeFactory

Originally posted by: edro13
Wow... I didn't think a bullet had that much forcing falling back down. I thought Myth Busters debunked that using coins? Does the bullet have a certain set velocity rate when it is falling?

well I know it's been debated here before, and IIRC there was a military study done on it that showed if the bullet is fired vertically then it's not that dangerous. (rh71 linked that very thread!)

From the striaghtdope link:

Datum 3. Still, the question isn't how many people get injured or killed by falling bullets, it's whether such things are possible at all. On further investigation, it appears the 60 foot-pound injury threshold cited by Hatcher may be misleading--a falling bullet's kinetic energy (foot pounds) alone is not a good predictor of the speed it needs to inflict a wound. B. N. Mattoo (Journal of Forensic Sciences, 1984) has proposed an equation relating mass and bullet diameter that seems to do a better job. Experiments on cadavers and such have shown, for example, that a .38 caliber revolver bullet will perforate the skin and lodge in the underlying tissue at 191 feet per second and that triple-ought buckshot will do so at 213 feet per second.

Mattoo's equation predicts that Hatcher's .30 caliber bullet, which has a small diameter in relation to its weight, will perforate the skin at only 124 feet per second. It's easy to believe that such a bullet falling at 300 feet per second could kill you, especially if it struck you in the head. In fact, maybe I need to rethink my dismissive comments about the danger of throwing a penny off the Empire State Building, although I still think the penny's tumbling in the updrafts would render it harmless.

 

[DivideBYZero]

Originally posted by: Marlin1975

Originally posted by: Mwilding

Originally posted by: Marlin1975

Originally posted by: edro13
Wow... I didn't think a bullet had that much forcing falling back down. I thought Myth Busters debunked that using coins? Does the bullet have a certain set velocity rate when it is falling?

A bullet will have the same speed going up as it does coming down. SO if it travels at 100mph out of the gun that is 5 feet off the ground, it will also be travling at 100mph when it comes down at around the same level it left off at, 5 feet. Now of course it may change depending on angle, wind speed, and other factors. But none the less, a bullet goes up, it must come down.

Proof that a little knowledge of something complicated rarely leads one to an understanding of the topic

Here is a article written about it.

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a950414b.html

Just backs up what I was getting into, if in a vacuum then it will be the same speed, BUT because of resistance of the air, its terminal velocity, it will be slower, but still enough to probable hurt and/or kill ya.

No. If you fire a projectile vertically from a gravity source then the rules of terminal velocity will still apply. The gravity would only have a certain force on the object, when it loses all it's kinetic energy. It would begin to be drawn by gravity, the object would reach TV and once reached it would accelerate no more.

The object cannot have 'velocity memory' such as you suggest in the first post.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: Citrix
are you majoring in dumbass? tell you what. let me get a penny go untop of the sears tower and drop it on your head. im willing to bet you would die.

The TV show "Mythbusters" did an episode on that.

It's not nearly enough to go through your skull. It would hurt like hell, but that's about all.

 

[DrPizza]

Yeah, Mythbusters is a great show and all...
But if you guys think that they get everything 100% correct all the time...
It's entertainment more than anything. I didn't see the penny episode though... can someone tell me what they did?

While I highly doubt a penny would kill someone (dropped from a tall building), determining what a penny will do after 1 or 2 trials ignores that there might be a large degree of variability in the problem.

Taking mythbusters as preaching the gospel in science is on a par with the example above of someone who took a high school physics course (where frictional effects are generally ignored because of the complexity of taking them into account in most situations) who thought the penny would have a net acceleration of 9.8 m/s/s down the entire time. I'm not an expert in science (though I know quite a bit), and I enjoy watching mythbusters... but I have noticed a few minor errors along the way. There are some shows that students have told me about that I'd love to watch...

torrent link anyone?

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
Yeah, Mythbusters is a great show and all...
But if you guys think that they get everything 100% correct all the time...
It's entertainment more than anything. I didn't see the penny episode though... can someone tell me what they did?

While I highly doubt a penny would kill someone (dropped from a tall building), determining what a penny will do after 1 or 2 trials ignores that there might be a large degree of variability in the problem.

Taking mythbusters as preaching the gospel in science is on a par with the example above of someone who took a high school physics course (where frictional effects are generally ignored because of the complexity of taking them into account in most situations) who thought the penny would have a net acceleration of 9.8 m/s/s down the entire time. I'm not an expert in science (though I know quite a bit), and I enjoy watching mythbusters... but I have noticed a few minor errors along the way. There are some shows that students have told me about that I'd love to watch...

torrent link anyone?

It's been a while since I saw that episode, but I thought they ended up figuring out how much force a penny would hit the person with, then went way beyond that number.

 

[Jzero]

Kind reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut - Deadeye Dick.

 

[daveshel]

Originally posted by: daveshel
I guess Richardo never read Deadeye Dick.

 

[NogginBoink]

Originally posted by: rh71

Originally posted by: Marlin1975

Originally posted by: edro13
Wow... I didn't think a bullet had that much forcing falling back down. I thought Myth Busters debunked that using coins? Does the bullet have a certain set velocity rate when it is falling?

A bullet will have the same speed going up as it does coming down. SO if it travels at 100mph out of the gun that is 5 feet off the ground, it will also be travling at 100mph when it comes down at around the same level it left off at, 5 feet. Now of course it may change depending on angle, wind speed, and other factors. But none the less, a bullet goes up, it must come down.

I'm skeptical about this... what happened to 9.8m/s^2... that wouldn't apply going both ways... only 1... coming back down.

Actually, the bullet acellerates at 9.8m/s^2 both going up and coming down. What do you think makes the bullet slow down as it goes up? Hint: it's slowing down at 9.8 m/s^2.

Ignoring wind resistance, the bullet will be traveling at the same speed when it hits the ground as it was when it was fired straight up. Marlin is correct.

 

[cavemanmoron]

Originally posted by: FrankyJunior
They did a CSI episode about this too.

That's why it's illegal to shoot firearms within city limits....

I saw that episode,great show too....

 

[CChaos]

Deadeye Dick anyone?

 

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42

Originally posted by: Citrix
are you majoring in dumbass? tell you what. let me get a penny go untop of the sears tower and drop it on your head. im willing to bet you would die.

The TV show "Mythbusters" did an episode on that.

It's not nearly enough to go through your skull. It would hurt like hell, but that's about all.

But doesn't a bullet weigh more than a penny and isn't it more airodynamic (sp?) so wouldn't it travel faster than a penny?

 

[BeauJangles]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42

Originally posted by: DrPizza
Yeah, Mythbusters is a great show and all...
But if you guys think that they get everything 100% correct all the time...
It's entertainment more than anything. I didn't see the penny episode though... can someone tell me what they did?

While I highly doubt a penny would kill someone (dropped from a tall building), determining what a penny will do after 1 or 2 trials ignores that there might be a large degree of variability in the problem.

Taking mythbusters as preaching the gospel in science is on a par with the example above of someone who took a high school physics course (where frictional effects are generally ignored because of the complexity of taking them into account in most situations) who thought the penny would have a net acceleration of 9.8 m/s/s down the entire time. I'm not an expert in science (though I know quite a bit), and I enjoy watching mythbusters... but I have noticed a few minor errors along the way. There are some shows that students have told me about that I'd love to watch...

torrent link anyone?

It's been a while since I saw that episode, but I thought they ended up figuring out how much force a penny would hit the person with, then went way beyond that number.

They calculated that the MAXIMUM velocity with which a penny could fall is around 65 mph (they did this through a wind tunnel test and through math equations - although they never showed the math). Then they modified a nail gun to shoot pennies at 65 mph and shot it at a block of cement and a human skull replica from about 4 feet. They then shot it at their hands and stuff.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: BlinderBomber
But doesn't a bullet weigh more than a penny and isn't it more airodynamic (sp?) so wouldn't it travel faster than a penny?

Absolutely. I'm not arguing that a bullet won't kill someone if it falls and hits them. I know for a fact that it can kill people.

 

[Kyteland]

Originally posted by: NogginBoink

Originally posted by: rh71

Originally posted by: Marlin1975

Originally posted by: edro13
Wow... I didn't think a bullet had that much forcing falling back down. I thought Myth Busters debunked that using coins? Does the bullet have a certain set velocity rate when it is falling?

A bullet will have the same speed going up as it does coming down. SO if it travels at 100mph out of the gun that is 5 feet off the ground, it will also be travling at 100mph when it comes down at around the same level it left off at, 5 feet. Now of course it may change depending on angle, wind speed, and other factors. But none the less, a bullet goes up, it must come down.

I'm skeptical about this... what happened to 9.8m/s^2... that wouldn't apply going both ways... only 1... coming back down.

Actually, the bullet acellerates at 9.8m/s^2 both going up and coming down. What do you think makes the bullet slow down as it goes up? Hint: it's slowing down at 9.8 m/s^2.

Ignoring wind resistance, the bullet will be traveling at the same speed when it hits the ground as it was when it was fired straight up. Marlin is correct.

This is why you are wrong. You can't ignore anything. This isn't high school physics here.

Bullets will exit from a gun traveling faster than terminal velocity. Both gravity and friction due to movement through the air are working on the bullet, so you are wrong in your claim that it is slowing at a constant 9.8 m/s^2. In truth it will hit the ground with a smaller velocity than when it exited the barrel of the gun.

 

[flxnimprtmscl]

I love these people that just can't comprehend the fact that the bullet actually has to come down somewhere. Freaking idiots.

 

[Mandos]

Originally posted by: Red
What luck!

 

[maziwanka]

Originally posted by: SludgeFactory

Originally posted by: edro13
Wow... I didn't think a bullet had that much forcing falling back down. I thought Myth Busters debunked that using coins? Does the bullet have a certain set velocity rate when it is falling?

well I know it's been debated here before, and IIRC there was a military study done on it that showed if the bullet is fired vertically then it's not that dangerous. (rh71 linked that very thread!)

Basically if shot straight up, the impulse from the explosion of gunpowder creates an initial velocity much higher than whatever drag-limited terminal velocity the bullet achieves on the way back down. As you fire in a more horizontal direction, you would bleed off less of that inital velocity before you hit an object on the ground and have more penetrating energy.

The problem with drunken gun-firing bastards on New Year's is that they're not carefully calculating the trajectory of their bullets and more likely firing at ~45 degrees and into somebody's house down the block.

interesting. i never thought you would die b/c of the air resistance, but i guess if you're stupid enough to fire the gun somewhat horizontally, then you could inflict some serious damage.

 

[TitanDiddly]

Given how many shots are fired, it had to happen eventually.

 

[Gibson486]

Originally posted by: Kyteland

Originally posted by: NogginBoink

Originally posted by: rh71

Originally posted by: Marlin1975

Originally posted by: edro13
Wow... I didn't think a bullet had that much forcing falling back down. I thought Myth Busters debunked that using coins? Does the bullet have a certain set velocity rate when it is falling?

A bullet will have the same speed going up as it does coming down. SO if it travels at 100mph out of the gun that is 5 feet off the ground, it will also be travling at 100mph when it comes down at around the same level it left off at, 5 feet. Now of course it may change depending on angle, wind speed, and other factors. But none the less, a bullet goes up, it must come down.

I'm skeptical about this... what happened to 9.8m/s^2... that wouldn't apply going both ways... only 1... coming back down.

Actually, the bullet acellerates at 9.8m/s^2 both going up and coming down. What do you think makes the bullet slow down as it goes up? Hint: it's slowing down at 9.8 m/s^2.

Ignoring wind resistance, the bullet will be traveling at the same speed when it hits the ground as it was when it was fired straight up. Marlin is correct.

This is why you are wrong. You can't ignore anything. This isn't high school physics here.

Bullets will exit from a gun traveling faster than terminal velocity. Both gravity and friction due to movement through the air are working on the bullet, so you are wrong in your claim that it is slowing at a constant 9.8 m/s^2. In truth it will hit the ground with a smaller velocity than when it exited the barrel of the gun.

Wow, it astounds me on how people want to become so right, that they just state the obvious hoping they can get away without being wrong.

Well no sh!t sherlock. We all know you can't ignore stuff like resistance. However, we are talking about theory here. When you talk about theory, we don't talk about outside factors. Even when you are in college, they tell you to ignore air resistance when you learn about projectile motion.

You don't teach a person paragraphs with out learning sentences.