Posted on 07/10/2013 9:41:04 PM PDT by Perseverando
Sounds like an opposite (if not equal-opposite) reaction. What direction *should* it go?
Gotta read this tomorrow.
Not 200 feet “upstream” against the direction the car was traveling. That is absurd.
Even if it rips free from the car (for example if the car hit a short fire hydrant ripping the engine free and sending it flying), something would need to #1 Stop the engine’s forward flight, then #2 Accelerate the engine all over again in the reverse direction (back up the road).
The “equal and opposite” force if the car hits a tree would stop the engine’s forward travel, partially squash the engine (get absorbed by distorting metal) and any remaining force that didnt get absorbed would push the engine backwards a short distance (a matter of feet or a few yards, not 200 feet).
>>>>Anybody who’s taken high school Physics knows the Mercedes cannot impact a tree, then send the engine block 180-degrees BACKWARDS against the direction of travel due to the impact.
>>Sounds like an opposite (if not equal-opposite) reaction. What direction *should* it go?
So, RDAardvark, you have admitted you never took H.S. Physics, or if you did, it didn’t “take.”
Generally in the direction of travel is the correct answer. Conservation of Momentum is at work here. There are vectors involved. Trees are not giant rubber bands that can absorb all that momentum and reverse the vectors, flinging the engine backwards a long distance.
I was sincere in the question. I do not know if the damage to the car is abnormal.
Think of it in terms of balls on a pool table. If you hit the cue ball into a ball or group of balls, they generally move in the direction of travel of the cue ball, until striking a rubber rail at which point the direction of travel can be reversed.
Trees are generally VERY non-rubber-bumper-like.
“Generally in the direction of travel is the correct answer. Conservation of Momentum is at work here. There are vectors involved. Trees are not giant rubber bands that can absorb all that momentum and reverse the vectors, flinging the engine backwards a long distance.”
Exactly. In a crash, most of the kinetic energy of the moving vehicle is absorbed by the deformation of the metal car.
If that weren’t true (for example, if the car/tree absorbed zero kinetic energy), then a car would “bounce off the tree” and shoot off at the appropriate angle at the exact same velocity it was going when it hit.
THAT is the “engine bounces off tree at roughly 180* angle” theory I’m expecting the Ostapo geniuses to announce thru their MSM. Most folks will believe it.
What really happened is, the car is driving South. Let’s pretend it’s going 60mph. That means the engine (still inside the car) is also moving at 60mph, same direction.
Somehow, some force SEPARATED the engine from the car, then STOPPED the engine’s Southbound 60mph travel, then REVERSED the flight of the (300 pound?) engine block, so that it suddenly starts flying in the opposite (Northbound) direction, coming to rest approx 150-250 feet upstream along the original travel path.
That isn’t what happens in crashes. I’m not going to do the calculations here (b/c I’ve forgotten most of them), but the KE (Kinetic Energy) of a 300-pound engine block flying thru the air at 60mph is very substantial. It would punch a nice hole in a house/building.
It cannot just “reverse direction” unless a very strong force #1 STOPS IT moving Southbound, and then #2 RE-ACCELERATES it in roughly the opposite direction, sending it approx 200 feet back upstream.
A tree won’t do that.
A plastic explosive charge would do it.
Stay tuned for another “CIA Animation” of how TWA 800 “broke in half after the center fuel tank exploded, THEN CLIMBED ANOTHER 2,000 feet IN TWO HALVES before deciding to plummet back down and hit the ocean.”
Things simply do not happen as officially described here. This is simply another case of
obumpa
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