Happy Birthday Taeshi!
Today is Veronica Vera’s (Taeshi) birthday, creator of Bittersweet Candy Bowl. This comic is about curvaceous cats and their angsty antics. What better way to celebrate a friend’s birthday than to disprove some of the events?
In one scene Mike and Lucy have fallen off a cliff. To save Lucy, Mike pushes her with his leg, propelling her upward back to the top of the cliff, to safety. THIS IS BULLSHIT. Here’s why:
For this problem, I am assuming that Mike weighs 120 pounds, Lucy weighs 100, and that 1.5 seconds have passed when Mike pushes Lucy up. First up, the conversions from pounds to kilograms:
Mike: 120pounds. 1 pound = 0.45 kg > 120 x 0.45 = 54 kg
Lucy: 100pounds. 1 pound = 0.45 kg > 100 x 0.45 = 45 kg
Next, we set up the problem. At the time of kick, they have been falling for 1.5 seconds. this makes their velocity 14.7 m/s, since v=gt. We’ll come back to this velocity.
Right now we need to find out the force that mike exerts on lucy with the kick. The maximum jump height for a human is about four feet, and since it uses the maximum amount of force, we can find out the maximum force of the push. Since a four foot jump would give a hangtime of about 1 second, we can conclude that the velocity that the leg pushes you upward is about 4.9 m/s, since it would take gravity (9.8 m/s) 1 second to counteract that and pull you back down.
With this info, we can conclude that this situation is impossible, even though Lucy is lighter than Mike, since they have fallen much farther than four feet, making it impossible. Even if Mike had enough strength to counteract the 9.8 m/s squared that gravity exerts on us, he would have to double it, to not only counteract gravity, but to also push Lucy upwards. And once again, he would need to double it, since they are in freefall, which dictates that half of the force is exerted on him. This means that he would need to quadruple it.
Basically, Mike would need the force of a cannon to push Lucy up. Is Mike a cannon? I THINK NOT.
In another scene, Sue and Amaya are asking Mike to the dance. Out of nowhere, Yashy comes and “SUPAH-CHOPS” Sue in the side of the head. Here’s why it doesnt work:
Gravity is 9.8 m/s squared. This pulls on someone every single second. This means that no matter how fast you’re going horizontally, you will be pulled down. To make it easier, let’s assume that Yashy is about 30 meters away, and is standing one foot higher than Sue’s head. In a tenth of a second from jumping, Yashy would be lower by one foot. Yashy would have to travel 30 meters in a tenth of a second to hit Sue on the head. That’s 300 m/s.
1 meter per second = 2.24 miles per hour > 300 x 2.24 = 672 miles per hour.
Yashy is going at just under Mach 1. Yashy would not only be physically maimed by air resistance, but Sue would be obliterated by the impact. Obliterated.
Unfortunately I couldn’t find a third scene, so have this:
Happy Birthday Taeshi, have another great year of physical impossibilities!
Wow looking back on this im a nerd
