The AFU and Urban Legend Archive AFU Snide falling pennies Select a topic - - - - - - - - Home Searches AFU FAQ - - - - - - - - AFU Animals Books Celebrities Classic Collegiate Death Disney Drugs Food GIF Language Legal Medical Misc Movies Politics Products Religion Science Sex Songs TV - - - - - - - - Other sites

From: linden@positive.eng.sun.com (Peter van der Linden)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: falling pennies
Date: 27 Dec 1994 20:38:19 GMT

Stuart Seelye <seelye@halcyon.halcyon.com> wrote: >Here in Seattle we've got the Space Needle, which is basically a 600
>foot tall tower with an observation platform at the top. If a penny were
>dropped off the Space Needle and struck a person standing at the bottom,
>what sort of danger would that penny present to the victim? If all
>you've got is a guess please don't answer, I can make my own guesses.

Good questions, Stuart -- I especially like your injunction not to waste your valuable time with foolish conjecture! You're clearly a man on the go. A busy man, with no time for idle chatter!

So, get straight to it. Questions like this are best settled by practical experiments. Get over to the Space Needle with a cow orker. Station the orker at the bottom, with a cell phone. You run up to the top with a variety of objects to drop: a penny, a dart, a chunk of concrete, a live .45 calibre bullet, a buzzsaw blade, a pound of gelignite, a dead horse, etc etc, and other harmless everyday objects that you should have lying around the house.

After you release each object, ask the cow orker for a report on impact. Keep back the penny, and try to "ding him on the bonnet with it" -- you'll both get a good laugh if he survives. Be sure to report the results of your experiments here.