Balistics question

[Lancer]

You're walking home from a hard days work. Gathering camel dung for use as fertilizer for local farmers, you smell and feel like that for which you quest. Off in the distance you hear the sounds of the Bath Party rally. 'POP POP POP' , Saddam pumps a few rounds into the air with his .45 to underline his point for the loyal crowd of party faithful who cheer all the more loudly, filled with joy and love for the Great Man. They did not spend the day picking up camel **** however. Your wife is sick, no money for medicine, your daughter is being forced to sleep with the local party boss, you suspect your nieghbor has eaten your dog. Just as you think life could not be worse, one of Saddam's spent bullets which, all full of himself he fired up into the air, lands square on the top of your head.

So, this is the question...does our hero die from the bullet?

[Wiglaf]

Er, yes, this is why I stopped doing this on the 4th of July. No casualties but near misses I think. I thought this was common knowledge by now.

[Aeson]

The hero dies from the hole created by the bullet...

[Aeson]

Or perhaps from the loss of blood from the hole. Or the infection that enters through the hole. Or maybe from the poorly trained surgeon trying to fix the hole.

Watch Mythbusters

[Lancer]

I'm thinking if it killed him it would be his lucky day.

[Aeson]

Then he wouldn't have been around to dance in the streets when our military got there to depose Saddam though!

[Lancer]

Stupid bastard would have tried to blow us up.

[Aeson]

See, Saddam wasn't so bad now, was he? He shot the guy who was going to blow us up.

[SlowwHand]

Re: Balistics question

Originally posted by Lancer
You're walking home from a hard days work. Gathering camel dung for use as fertilizer for local farmers, you smell and feel like that for which you quest. Off in the distance you hear the sounds of the Bath Party rally. 'POP POP POP' , Saddam pumps a few rounds into the air with his .45 to underline his point for the loyal crowd of party faithful who cheer all the more loudly, filled with joy and love for the Great Man. They did not spend the day picking up camel **** however. Your wife is sick, no money for medicine, your daughter is being forced to sleep with the local party boss, you suspect your nieghbor has eaten your dog. Just as you think life could not be worse, one of Saddam's spent bullets which, all full of himself he fired up into the air, lands square on the top of your head.

So, this is the question...does our hero die from the bullet?

Likely.

[Lancer]

That was the LOL of all time Aeson.

[Lancer]

So basicly the bullet leaves the .45 and goes up until it loses all velocity and starts falling back to earth, gathering speed based on its weight minus the wind resistance it encounters. By the time it impacts our hero it has regained enough velocity to punch through his skull.

Just based on its weight? He's an arab...

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Er, yes, this is why I stopped doing this on the 4th of July. No casualties but near misses I think. I thought this was common knowledge by now.

By now? How long have we known that what goes up comes down? Only an idiot can't figure that out.

[ZEE]

actually i think this is a true story

rings a bell from sumwhere...

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Lancer
So basicly the bullet leaves the .45 and goes up until it loses all velocity and starts falling back to earth, gathering speed based on its weight minus the wind resistance it encounters. By the time it impacts our hero it has regained enough velocity to punch through his skull.

No, a bullet that loses it's velocity on the way up, to the point it reverses it's course or is just "falling", isn't going to have a high enough terminal velocity to do much damage. It's essentially a penny off a skyscraper at that point.

On a less steep trajectory the bullet can maintain a lot of it's velocity and do damage when coming back down... over yonder.

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Lancer
So basicly the bullet leaves the .45 and goes up until it loses all velocity and starts falling back to earth, gathering speed based on its weight minus the wind resistance it encounters.

A nitpick, but if I remember my physics correctly, the acceleration of the bullet is proportional to earth's gravity and does not depend on the weight of the bullet
If not for wind resistance a feather and a bullet would fall at the same time.