• Question: if you drop a sandwick from the eiffle tower could it crack a skull?

    Asked by georgewbriggs to James, Marcus, Martin, Rob, Suzanne on 16 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Marcus Gallagher-Jones

      Marcus Gallagher-Jones answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      That depends on the filling, whether it’s cut into triangles, squares or left whole and whether you drop it lengthways or horizontally. ;). Since Force = Mass x acceleration and acceleration due to gravity is 9.8m/s a 100g sandwich would generate a significant amount of force by the time it reached the bottom of the eiffel tower (324 meters)

    • Photo: Martin Zaltz Austwick

      Martin Zaltz Austwick answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      No, but you’d get filling everywhere. Air resistance would stop it getting sufficient speed to cause any damage.

      Unless it was a very hard baguette!

    • Photo: Suzanne McEndoo

      Suzanne McEndoo answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      Hmm, maybe? If you wrapped it in something like tinfoil, it would stay together long enough. On the other hand, the sandwich is soft, so it would absorb some of the force itself and split apart when it hit.

      I’m not volunteering for the experiment though.

Comments