[Mad Dawgg]

I remember several years back a school or church group had a HUGE tug-of war competition using a large nylon rope. There were like a hundred or more people on that rope. The rope snapped and people towards the middle of the rope lost most of their fingers. Just about everyone got injured with severe rope burns and lacerations on their hands.

[William Tell]

Here’s the incident that I recalled from some years past:

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/1995/jun/07/2-boy-scouts-die-when-tug-of-war-rope-snaps/

In this incident, 650 Scouts were pulling on the rope. Assuming that each Scout could generate, say, twenty pounds of force, that would be 6500 pounds in each direction. That’s over THREE TONS of force. If the Scouts tried to coordinate while jerking on the rope, they might generate twice that amount, or SIX TONS.

I remember a co-worker years ago who was applying compressed air to a plastic container that was roughly a one-foot-cube. The pressure regulator was reading about 15 psi, when it dawned on me that somebody should consider the forces involved. Each face of the cube would consist of 144 inches, so that total force on that face would be roughly 15 times 150 or OVER TWO THOUSAND POUNDS. Just as I was about to warn him that he was doing something foolish, the back of the box was blown off against the nearby wall.