If I Drop A Penny Off The Top Of The Empire State Building, And It Hits Someone, Will It Kill Them?

No the penny would be blown back up on the building by the winds . Check out Mythbusters they did a story on this.

20 Responses to “ If I Drop A Penny Off The Top Of The Empire State Building, And It Hits Someone, Will It Kill Them? ”

  1. A penny has a terminal velocity due to friction with air, so it can’t keep accelerating at 9.8m/s. It can’t travel fast enough to kill you, otherwise people will be killed by hail all the time. I wonder if it could kill you on a large planet with no atmosphere?

  2. i have to go with Mack L on this… It’s terminal velocity would not become that great, due to atmospheric conditions and wind and the shape of it….. however ever dropped a pointy tipped projectile, say a large rifle bullets, given its shape and tendacy to fall pointy-side down, it could prob kill you if it struck the right are of your body… What most dont realize is that when you fire a gun straight up in the air, the acceleration of that bullet once it comes out of the barrel is equal to the relative gravity or you can assume the given -9.8 m/s/s.. this means that the bullet is constantly changing speed at a rate of 9.8 meters every second.. so if the beggining speed is 120 m/s/s coming out of the barrel, then one second later it is 110 m/s/s, roughly, this continous untilit reaches 0, and the bullet stops travelling up, and then starts travelling down at the same rate of acceleration… since acceleration was gravity and gravity remained constant, when the bullet gets back down to the ground it is travelling at 120 m/s/s!
    Are you still reading?
    Great cause i lost interest……..

  3. it probably wont but u would do that y……………..???????????? just a little lost it really should just hurt for a while but if it hit them in the soft spot or temple then it gets serious injury or could be fatal

  4. surely you will, wanna bet?

  5. No it would not kill them. I am sure they would feel it. But I am also sure many have tested this theory.

  6. I’ll be there and try it on you,then they will really call you crack head !

  7. no
    The site below debunks many popular myths.

  8. NO.. it would not kill them but it would make them feel it

  9. the going rumor is that yes it will kill them.

  10. no but it will injure

  11. i always heard that.. now I have the answer! thanks for asking!

  12. if it didn’t kill them, it would hurt like hell!
    i know that bolts will develop a lethel velocity when dropped from a high distance—but they’re bulkier and wouldn’t have as much wind resistance as a flat penny.
    i wouldn’t want to be anywhere close if people were chucking pennies off the empire state building.

  13. The Mythbusters have already busted that myth. No.

  14. i think the terminal velocity is too small for it to kill them

  15. YES!!!DON’T NEVER DO THAT.unless your a nut and want to kill someone.

  16. Urban legend. It would not kill them, but it would hurt!

  17. No, after a certain period of falling the penny hits its maximum speed (terminal velocity). That speed is not fast enough to penetrate the human skull. But if hits a bald man just right, he’ll have a reeeeeaal tiny tattoo of Lincoln on his head!

  18. i think it would be really hard to hit someone from way up there but if you do it just depends were the penny would hit them

  19. No it won’t. Ever seen the show “Mythbusters” on the Discovery Channel? They tested out that one and there’s no way a penny could build up enough velocity to kill a person.

  20. This was on Myth Busters the other night….Myth busted,,,answer is No

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