Trivia Junction

A Compendium of trivia I find interesting
...for the curious

Winston Churchill was hit by a taxi

In 1931, the famously portly Winston Churchill was hit by a taxi on Fifth Avenue in New York and taken to a hospital.

Churchill wasn't seriously hurt, but he wondered about the collision and sent a telegram to his friend Frederick Lindemann, a physicist.

Churchill asked Lindemann to calculate the impact of a car weighing 2,400 pounds and traveling 30 to 35 miles per hour on a stationary body weighing 200 pounds.

Churchill noted that the car's brakes had not been applied, that he had been carried a distance, and that the physics would presumably be “impressive.”

Lindemann did the calculations and telegraphed back: “Collision equivalent falling 30 feet on pavement.

Equal 6,000 foot pounds energy.

Equivalent stopping 10-pound brick dropped 600 feet or two charges buckshot point blank range.

Rate inversely proportional thickness cushion surrounding skeleton and give of frame.

...Congratulations on preparing suitable cushion and skill in bump.”

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