Re: Audi 100 Gives up the Ghost for Owner

[Orin Eman <orin@wolfenet.com>]

> In message <199907210447.VAA17712@gonzo.wolfenet.com> Orin Eman writes:

> > Oh dear, I sense another physics argument.  Those government crash tests
> > where they crash cars into a concrete barrier claim to be equivalent
> > to hitting an oncoming car at identical speed.  They are correct - if
> > the oncoming car is identical - same weight, same speed, then
> > the effect is the same as crashing into a solid barrier.

> > However, if the oncoming car has more momentum than you do,
> > (mass * velocity) then you are worse off than hitting a solid barrier.

> They _were_ perhaps equivalent for full-frontal collisions.  They are
> no longer so for half-frontal, since they don't react to the torque
> in such an accident in anything like the same way.

Well to be pedantic, in the full frontal case, they would have
to be mirror images of each other...

For a half-frontal, well, I think I'll still take the tree over
a bigger/faster car.  Unless the other car is a mini metro ;)

Orin.