Thread: freaky people

if digits count I still got ya bet JMS if you look at my avatar you will see that thats my leg setting on the table

Originally Posted by JMS

I have to agree with the dirty fingernails bit because not too many people work hard enough these days to get their fingernails dirty in the first place!

... touché

Originally Posted by Doc

if digits count I still got ya bet JMS if you look at my avatar you will see that thats my leg setting on the table

Damned you and your prosthetic superiority!

Originally Posted by Mike_ratliff

That article says the man died of cardiac arrest... not a crushing injury... He saw a giant elephant falling on him, and died of a heart attack.

True it stated the man died from cardiac arrest. However, heart attack is more general than a cardiac arrest, so you cannot conclude that he had a heart attack. Heart attack means blood flow was disrupted. Cardiac arrest is when the heart fails, which can cause a heart attack. Another possibility is the elephant could've prevented the heart from pumping. Remeber, a falling elephant introduces more factors. Impulse was just one example. Another example is you're not dealing with a uniform body. The point of contact changes from time to time, ergo you have various amounts of pressure. The instanteous pressure, the moment once the elephant hit the man, would put a LOT more pressure than a woman wearing high heels since it would be about 6 tons over about 9 square inches, which is about 1,000+ psi (6,894,757 Pa), which is far more than what the heart can take. But that would mean the initial point of contact was near the heart. If we assume he's a healthy man, he would be able to take only about 16000 Pa.

If we really wanted to get into this problem, we could create a differential equation, given the weight of the elephant, the height it fell at and a few other parameters, to determine how long the elephant's pressure is above 16000 Pa. What you would most likely see is that it's enough to cause a cardiac arrest.

On one last note, in terms of calculating psi for an elephant lying on top of a person, you wouldn't take 100 square feet, because the bottleneck area is only the size of the human since the human is smaller. If there are any points of contact that are suspended or touching the ground, that too would need to be factored in.

Berticus, you are indeed a freak

The only thing freaky about me is I have a 9/16" dia hole in my tongue. I wear a custom made stud in it. But it's cool no one knows it's there unless I make an effort to show them it. I've had it for 9 years now and my boss of the last 5 still dosen't know about it. When I was young and single it was pretty cool to be at a bar drinking with my friends and out of the blue stick my index finger through it. Girls from around the bar would see it and come up for a closer look. Lots of times it ended up well.

I should get rid of it and let the hole close up dont know why I haven't yet.

Originally Posted by Berticus

Let's take the largest recorded elephant coming in at 26,400 lbs. You divide by 2 because when elephants walk, they walk on two feet, this is 13,200. Average elephant foot is 246.49--388.09 square inch. We'll use 246.49 just for kicks. Take 13,200/246.49, you get about 54 pounds per square inch. So think of 55 lb weights that have a base of 1 square inch in that little area, it's really something your body would be able to tolerate. I mean essentially the reason why you can lie on a bed of nails and not get punctured is because all those little points don't have enough force to puncture the skin. Versus you have one nail, try lying on top of that with the pointed end going in. It will go in.

Pressure Under High Heels

I'm sorry, but you are mistaken.

Yes the per unit area pressure is less, 26.77pounds per square inch(see below), which is less pressure per square inch than a lady in high heels.

You say the weight is 26,400, we need to divide by four (not two, unless he is stepping on you with two feet at a time) to get the weight per foot : 6,600lbs. That is 6,600lbs no matter how you slice it. 6,600lbs divided by 246.49 sq inches yields actually only 26.77 pounds per square inch.

The fact remains that the elephant's foot is 246.49 sq. inches, he can't step on you with only one square inch of his foot (unless he is also wearing heels..), so you must multiply the 26.77pounds per square inch by the surface area of his foot to get the full force applied to your prone body laying beneath the pachyderm. That would be 6,600lbs, only 26.77PSI, but still 6,600lbs coming down on you.

Also the weight of a stiletto heel will be distributed across the body by the ribcage, so while it will hurt like hell, the ribcage and chest muscles can take the weight.

If an elephant sits dow, the whole rib cage will be under compression, so the weight cannot be distributed.
A stiletto heel above the heart will hurt like hell but not do any structural damage if there is no kick behind it.

When you deal with a fluid motion, such as compression or cutting something, pressure is more valuable than just the force. The force is more appropriate when you're dealing with any sort of acceleration (moments and moving something). I mean whenever you deal with a force, you always try to center it around an infinitismally small point.

Here's a simple test for you. You take a woman wearing heels and an elephant, have them walk around in the sand. You won't see footprints from an elephant, because their feet are huge and can spread the weight, but with a woman, you'll see the tracks.

The rib cage thing is a different problem. Since you're dealing with structural integrity, you do indeed use force.