I’m gonna test the limits of the subreddit community 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?

  • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
    5·
    19 days ago

    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?

    • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works
      7·
      19 days ago

      Cannonballs are insanely OP. Mythbusters shot a small cannon once; it blew entirely through their backstop and rolled through a few houses before stopping. Your method will result in an overestimate.

      • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
        2·
        19 days ago

        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.

      • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        19 days ago

        That’s okay, an overestimate provides a bracket. If the cannon turns out to be way too much, we know the right speed is somewhere between human-thrown and cannon-fired. Then it’s a matter of reducing the parameters until they’re barely enough to work.

  • MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca
    3·
    19 days ago

    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 (ie 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.

    • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      19 days ago

      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.

  • yesman@lemmy.world
    42·
    19 days ago

    The interesting question is how does the pitcher hit themselves? Throw the ball around the world? Portal gun?