Submitted 1 day ago by criss_cross@lemmy.world to [deleted]
I’m gonna test the limits of the subreddit name. I was watching some baseball on some edibles and I had a thought if it’d be possible to get hit just right by a baseball to take a chunk of a person out. You know like an anime shot.
I assume it’d have to be a massive force that isn’t possible. But maybe it is and no one’s tried because they’re not sadistic?
3
maybe 4
The interesting question is how does the pitcher hit themselves? Throw the ball around the world? Portal gun?
… The batter hits the ball
The question says “pass through the pitcher”. He’s having fun at OP’s mistake.
I assume they’d be sentenced to be blown from a gun, but with one of those auto pitchers from a batting cage
I don’t have the knowledge of physics or math to figure it out, but I suppose we could find something that definitely can rip through someone, like a small cannonball, and figure out how much force it would put on the body, and adjust the mass and size for a baseball and see how much speed you’d need to get that amount of force?
Cannonballs are insanely OP. Mythbusters shot a small cannon once; it blew entirely through their backstop and went through a few houses before stopping. Your method will result in an overestimate.
That’s okay, an overestimate provides a bracket: human pitcher not enough, cannon too much. Then it’s a matter of reducing the parameters until they’re barely enough to put the ball through the pitcher.
I was thinking that might be the case, but I’m not sure what would get us closer to the minimum force required to punch holes in someone.
I’m not physicist, but I’d imagine the force required to propel the ball to that speed would also disintegrate the ball itself?
The shape of the ball would exert the force over a relatively large area compared to a bullet, and the ball material is much weaker than metal objects that would blow through people (is cannonballs).
So the force required would increase due to larger surface area, but then the ball would break apart from said force. The solution is a metal baseball propelled by a railgun.
Now to just find victims test subjects to trial it.
That might be okay though. The ball doesn’t necessarily have to be intact when it hits the pitcher - if it becomes a stream of smaller particles they still might be energetic enough to do the job.
It definitely stretches the definition of “a baseball”, but, on the otherhand that does make it easier to penetrate with smaller projectile. Hrm…
A railgun feels excessive, we had cannons.
True, but also, go big or go home. We’re already talking about murdering someone by accelerating a baseball through their body. Might as well make their body turn into a fine mist, same jailtime.
The Waterjet Channel used to do things like this. They'd launch stuff out of an air cannon at a torso made of ballistics gel on what seemed like a regular basis.
And I daresay The Slow Mo Guys, if not also the OG Mythbusters must have done something similar at some point, not that I can call anything specific to mind right now.
It’s not a “subreddit”.
Old habits die hard :(
asking for a friend
I don’t think it’s possible from a bat at any force. The ball would unravel and slow from wind before it hits the person and at worst it would just knock them back.
You’ve been watching too many cartoons.
Nighed@feddit.uk 1 day ago
Related XKCD (takes your question to the extreme): what-if.xkcd.com/1/
MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
This is gold!
criss_cross@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Oh man there is an XKCD for everything!
Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 1 day ago
Damn, the moment i saw the post i wanted to comment this lol
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 1 day ago
That’s an excellent analysis - nice find!