Extreme Catapulting

This was amazing. That guy is my hero.

That....that was pretty cool

It's great how it turns out that it's actually a Mini commercial, which is pretty much the opposite of XTREEEEEEME.

Applying some physics here.
The board he uses acts like a plane that transmits the energy of impact produced by the falling material to the other side of it in which the guy is place.
Keeping in mind the height on which the material is placed (potential energy) plus the acceleration it suffers and seeing how the material is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay much heavier than him and all the crapy physics formulas I can't recall right now this is what it should have happen:

- The force suffered is too high that the board cannot handle that much energy transmitted so fast that it breaks, it launches the guy a bit but horizontally more than vertically and not outheightening the machine's height damaging the guy a lot if not dead by his impact when fell.
- The force suffered is too high but it did not break the board because it was super-strong, launching the guy, ideally, in a very vertical position, however the force was too high (or high enough) to break some bones (knee, legs, feet, spinal column and more) producing that the guy suffers too much in pain that he cannot trigger the parachute.
OR
- The force suffered is too high that the guy was instantly killed.

Pick one of those real options, please.

No the board won't snap.

The board will only snap if the shear force generated within the beam is too great. And to generate a shear force, the board has to have two constraints, like a simply supported beam does, and an external load applied. According to newton's laws, every force must have an equal and opposite once reacting to it, and that's what shear force is. However in this, case, there's only one constraint and that would be the fulcrum, where the board was placed. Now this is assuming at the load is applied at the very tip of the beam, or the board in this case. The weight of the human is almost negligible compared to the dropweight, so we can assume that at the instance the dropweight touches the end of the board sticking up into the air, there is no other force applied anywhere along it other than the weight of the beam itself which should be equalized at the fulcrum. So when the weight falls, there is no resistance and the beam undergoes a moment. However, if the human on the other side of the board had a weight almost as great as that of the falling weight, THEN the board should snap because then that's where you create a bend due to two opposing torques/moments acting in opposite directions about the fulcrum. This is a dynamic process, as opposed to a static one, so there will be almost no shear force generate in the board/beam as according to Newton's laws, the reactionary force due to the falling weight is simply the board creating a moment, or in other words, a spin about its fulcrum. Say you have a fan with blades on it. Assuming that the fan is free moving, frictionless, and unlocked, no matter how much force you apply on the blade, the blade wont snap, it'll just spin about the center really really fast (it'll just generate a large centripetal force)

The board will snap however, if the distributed load of the weight covers enough length along the board (because a distrubted load over a given length of a beam will generate a bending moment, thus generating a shear stress). However, this will happen only at the very end after it catapults the human into the air.

But yes, this is fake, although I wish it wasn't

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 24 2008, 5:59 am by MillenniumArmy.

I think the answer is that the human body can't withstand the force applied by the torque on the board

Well, my body can ;D

It sucks because it's fake.

Liar, I am your hero.

Fake but funny. Especially with the german guy scream/laughing.

Corbo, nobody suggested that it's real. We all know that even if the board wouldn't break, the acceleration for him would be too high to survive.

yet another fake youtube video...

You guys should watch the squirrel launch/catapult ones. Those are hilarious (and real too)

Would it be possible of he was lying down?

Most probably not - such acceleration is equal to falling from a building, no matter the pose you're in.

-Internal organs' connection tissues torn off
-Blood vessels damaged
-Brain concussion
etc...

Lying down would actually make it even worse. Because now you've got the entire length of the body exposed to the vertical force generated by the lift, and your body can't handle such pressure. It's like doing a belly flop from a really high cliff. Your body is more capable of handling the vertical force when you stand straight, but in this case it really shouldn't matter

WRAONG

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 24 2008, 9:46 pm by FatalException.

Are "centripetal" and "centrifugal" being confused here? =P

I think so.. it's what continues to make this so epic. Of course there is centrifugal force too, in a nonlinear coordinate system

And I didn't really read MA's long essay on physics either

I'd also like to note that there was a big chance with something like this that he wouldn't place the board correctly (and getting the angle and positioning right while trying to sneak into a construction zone seems very unlikely).

I think the most likely thing is that he would place the board too far in and be crushed, or place it too far out and not get launched at all. And it's very unlikely he would find a level enough surface...

There are alot of things wrong with this actually working.