alt Hacker News> We know intuitively that a ball atop a 20ft ladder has twice the potential energy of a ball atop a 10ft ladder.
...no ? dropping something 10 times from 1ft is nowhere near energetic/damaging as once from 10tf
Replies
TeMPOraL • today at 9:25 PM
10ft vs 20ft is factor of 2 difference in height, 1ft vs 10ft is factor of 10.
Also how it translates to difference in damage depends on how elastic is the collision. If the balls are made of rubber, things get much less dramatic, and energy exchange ratios more obvious.
namdnay • today at 4:51 PM
lifting something 10 times 1 foot is exactly the same as lifting it 10 feet :)
Dropping something from 1 foot has 1/10th the kinetic energy compared to the same thing dropped from 10 feet. Damage is a very poor proxy for energy because there are all kinds of variables and thresholds and structural consideration in determining damage.
A cup might not break at all in a 1 foot fall and might shatter when dropped from 10. The outcome is binary, which isn't useful as a scale of input energy.