You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments
72 points
*

If your leg has a mass of 2kg, 1.1×10^10 J of kinetic energy would require your leg to be moving at about 150 100 km/second not faster than the speed of light.

TLDR: Their math is shit.

permalink
report
reply
16 points

Pretty sure you’re generating twice as much energy as needed, the required speed is only about 106km/s

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points
Deleted by creator
permalink
report
parent
reply
11 points

Besides, if you really needed those kinds of speed, you’d obviously have to calculate with relativistic formulas. Energy is asymptotical at the speed of light.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point
*

100 km/sec is not relativistic and even if it were, at no point would that object need to or could exceed the speed of light. Its a fundamental limit that cant be broken.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

Setting aside the correctness in OP for the moment, what’s being said here is that you don’t actually need to break lightspeed. The foot would have to be moving asymptomaticly close to lightspeed, but not passing it. OP used an equasion that works classically, but we’re in territory where that model breaks down.

But if the math doesn’t work out that way, anyway, then whatever, classical equasions are fine.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Yeah, I was refering to the OP’s calculated result in that it’s incorrect not only by incorrect math, but also incorrect physics.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Yeah, their answer just intuitively seems very wrong. The ratio between the kid’s weight and your foot’s weight should be equal to the ratio between their final speed and your foot’s required speed. Ridiculous.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Science Memes

!science_memes@mander.xyz

Create post

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don’t throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

Community stats

  • 12K

    Monthly active users

  • 3.6K

    Posts

  • 88K

    Comments