Can You Be Killed By A Penny Falling From The Empire State Building?

When I was younger I always thought that this was true but the real is answer is no.  Yes you would think at such a high starting point, that the penny would generate enough speed to kill someone, but no it is impossible for a coin from that height to penetrate a human and kill them.

It’s a huge myth!  A penny is really nothing; its not a compact object so it does not drill or penetrate very well.  People assume that the falling penny would accelerate for the entirety of its fall, which is false.  The penny actually reaches a maximum velocity, meaning it does not gain anymore speed at a certain point.  So the faster the penny falls, the greater the air resistance.  And at the point where the two forces balance is when the penny stops accelerating and starts falling at a constant speed, which is called the terminal velocity.

According to an article i read, a penny thrown off a skyscraper reaches its terminal velocity after only about 50 feet of descent.  It also stated in the article that even if there were no air, a falling penny would reach up to a speed of 208 mph by the time it reached the ground.  Even at that speed the penny still cannot drill through, but it might damage your skull.  A penny is very unstable and small in the air, so air resistance is a big deal.

The popular tv show MythBusters had an episode called Penny Drop.

Here is a article that abc news wrote on a guy named Louis Bloomfield, who conducted an experiment to show that it is actually a myth.

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3131332&page=1

Works Citied

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/could-a-penny-dropped-off/

 

2 thoughts on “Can You Be Killed By A Penny Falling From The Empire State Building?

  1. Jessica Nicole Greenhut

    Great Post! I have always believed that a penny falling from that height could kill you and it is very interesting to discover otherwise. An interesting fact that I researched was that since a penny tumbles when it falls combined with its light weight, there’s so much air resistance that the penny never really gathers that much speed before it hits its terminal velocity. The greatest velocity the penny is able to reach is 100 miles per hour, where a bullet in a gun can reach 2,000 miles per hour. If the penny had been a different shape, that disabled it from tumbling, then it would be able to cause more damage to a person when dropped from the empire state building. Even though a penny is so small, prior to reading your blog I would not have second guessed that it could kill someone after being dropped from the empire state building, but I now realize there are many more factors that you must calculate in. Thanks for sharing!

    If you want to read more about how air resistance, weight, and shape play a role in the pennies impact level, click on the link below.
    http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/threw-penny-off-the-empire-state-building.htm

  2. Hung Chieh Wang

    Interesting post, I thought most of the objects can do huge damage when they fall from high place. I always afraid of throwing things from apartment because I know that will hurt other people. I just knew about maximum velocity, do every objects have their own maximum velocity? I found a very interesting website that can calculate the free fall energy : free fall energy calculator

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