How Dangerous is a Penny Dropped From a Skyscraper?
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Published 2022-10-01
A massive thanks to Adam Savage and the whole Tested Crew – especially Kristen Lomasney, Ryan Kiser, and Joey Fameli. Thank you so much for coming out to the desert with us, and for inviting us to your cave! Check out the video we made with them on their channel – • Adam Savage's Penny Drop Wind Tunnel ...
Another huge thanks to iFly Ontario for letting us shoot in your amazing windtunnel. Special thanks to Diana Rios, Treasa Telle, Michelle Brumley for having us and Anthony Jones, Torrell Henderson and Nate Roth for being great instructors. iFly run STEM education trips, where you can experience terminal velocity first hand – www.iflyworld.com/programs/stem-field-trips/
Thanks to Inland Empire Film Services and the San Bernardino County Film Office for portions of the video shot in the County of San Bernardino.
The raindrop video is from Alistair McClymont’s gorgeous artwork “Raindrop” – alistairmcclymont.com/artwork/raindrop/
Video of the raindrop breaking apart is from the coolest paper i’ve read in a while – Villermaux, E., & Bossa, B. (2009). Single-drop fragmentation determines size distribution of raindrops. Nature physics, 5(9), 697-702. – ve42.co/Villermaux
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References:
Altair. (2019). Digital Debunking: Could a Penny Dropped Off the Top of the Empire State Building Actually Kill You? - ve42.co/Altair2019
Braeunig, R.A. Atmosphere Properties. - ve42.co/AtmosProp
The Guardian. (2014). Brutal winter weather brings new challenge: ice falling from skyscrapers - ve42.co/WTCicicle
NASA. (2018). The Apollo 15 Hammer-Feather Drop - ve42.co/NASAmoondrop
Red Bull Stratos - ve42.co/RBStratos
Quealy, K., Sanger-KatzIn, M. (2015). In Other Countries, You’re as Likely to Be Killed by a Falling Object as by a Gun. New York Times. - ve42.co/NYTFallingObject
National Safety Council. (2022). Struck by Objects. - ve42.co/NSCStruck
Williams, A. (2019). What are your chances of being killed by hail in the US? - ve42.co/Williams2019
NewScientist. (2021). Can bullets fired upwards cause injuries when they return to earth? - ve42.co/CelebratoryGunFire
Chambers, J. (2020). Meet the Flechette – the Deadliest Weapon of World War I? - ve42.co/Flechette
Wikipedia. Lazy Dog (bomb). - ve42.co/LazyDog
Gläser, N., Kneubuehl, B. P., Zuber, S., Axmann, S., Ketterer, T., Thali, M. J., & Bolliger, S. A. (2011). Biomechanical examination of blunt trauma due to baseball bat blows to the head. Journal of Forensic Biomechanics, 2 - ve42.co/Glaser2011
Yoganandan, N., Pintar, F. A., SANCES JR, A. N. T. H. O. N. Y., Walsh, P. R., Ewing, C. L., Thomas, D. J., & Snyder, R. G. (1995). Biomechanics of skull fracture. Journal of neurotrauma, 12(4), 659-668.
New York Times. (2014). Falling Tape Measure Kills Man at Jersey City Construction Site - The New York Times - ve42.co/NYTTapeMeasure
IMDb. (2006). "MythBusters" Bullets Fired Up (TV Episode). - ve42.co/MBgunfire
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Special thanks to: Elliot MIller, Louis Lebbos, RayJ Johnson, Brian Busbee, Jerome Barakos M.D., Amadeo Bee, TTST, Balkrishna Heroor, Chris LaClair, John H. Austin, Jr., OnlineBookClub.org, Matthew Gonzalez, Eric Sexton, john kiehl, Nathan Lanza, Diffbot, Gnare, Dave Kircher, Burt Humburg, Blake Byers, Dumky, Evgeny Skvortsov, Meekay, Bill Linder, Paul Peijzel, Josh Hibschman, Mac Malkawi, Michael Schneider, jim buckmaster, Juan Benet, Robert Blum, Sunil Nagaraj, Richard Sundvall, Lee Redden, Stephen Wilcox, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Michael Krugman, Cy 'kkm' K'Nelson, Sam Lutfi, Ron Neal
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Written by Petr Lebedev, Derek Muller, and Emily Zhang
Filmed by Derek Muller, Trenton Oliver, Petr Lebedev, Emily Zhang, Raquel Nuno and Eddie Lopez
Animation by Ivy Tello, Mike Radjabov, Fabio Albertelli, and Jakub Misiek
Edited by Trenton Oliver and Derek Muller
FPV Drone Pilots: Sammie Saing and Josh Ewalt
Slow Motion Camera: Shawn Sanders and Anthony Corrales
Phantom slow motion camera & lenses provided by Panny Hire L.A
Helicopter Pilots: Rick Shuster and Cliff Fleming
Helicopter Safety Officer: Ryan Hosking
Production Assistants: Roman Bacvic and Eddie Lopez
Research Assistant: Katie Barnshaw
Additional video/photos supplied by Pond5 and Getty Images
Music from Epidemic Sound
Thumbnail by Ignat Berbeci
Produced by Derek Muller, Petr Lebedev, and Emily Zhang
All Comments (21)
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As a Physics undergrad, this video scared me because for the first time, we saw that air resistance isn't negligible.
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This was SO fun. Can't wait to collaborate again!
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All of my science teachers through all of my years in school were not nearly as cool as you guys in explaining this in the way that you just did and I thank you.
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That one dude wandering in the desert for days with no food or water and seeing a bunch of pennies everywhere
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Imagine being an archeologist in the future and coming across hundreds of extremely rare and valuable ancient coins in the middle of a desert with no explanation
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As a skydiver I have jumped in the rain and it hurts as you fall onto the rain. People used to joke it was because the cartoon raindrop was pointy at the top. The reality is, you're falling at 200kph and the rain is 20kph so the rain is hitting you at 180kph!
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What if you drop a piano?
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1:36 It is cool seeing Adam go immediately into professional mode. It's like a switch flips and he is going over exactly how the shoot will go.
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You know you've reached a specific level of YouTuber when you have a mythbuster on your show. This brought back so many memories from my teens.
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My heart goes out to the interns that had to pick up all those pennies lol
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This was awesome! I'm in physics this semester, it's so cool seeing such a thorough explanation and demonstration of everything we just learned in our first unit 🙂
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I love that I clicked on this and thought "No one has ever shown this better than Adam Savage. Let's see what you got." And then I see that you got Adam Savage. Bravo.
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Mythbusters may have ended but the spirit of mythbusters lives on in channels like this and many others that have been inspired to think, question, and experiment everything they find.
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Thank you for including David Scott saying "How about that?" at the end after he drops the hammer and the feather on the Moon. That's my favorite part of the whole thing.
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All of my science teacher's through all of my years in school were not nearly as cool as you guys and explaining this in the way that you just did and I thank you.
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My first time viewing your content, I love the scientific explanations! So few people explain in detail how our world works, great job
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Its sometimes funny when you ask visitors to a site to wear bump caps/hard hats. They always look at you like "You for real?" Yes. Yes we are. I have had to work under people working at height and the amount of headaches I've been saved from by wearing a bump cap, is insane. Bolts, washers, tools. All it takes is for one guy to fumble one thing, which is easily done, and smack your day is ruined. Great content as always.
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It's moving to see Adam in this. I grew up with Mythbusters and he hasn't lost any of his verve and enthusiasm.
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The way he made sure his ballocks were protected had me cracked up. These were entertaining to watch tbf.
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I love this channel. Makes science more interesting and easier to comprehend. Thank you
