Determining the force of impact of two cars...

[Jinxycat]

I bet theres a way they are.

Yup, Lewis Carroll himself answered it: "Because they're never put with the wrong end in front and because they both produce a few notes, although they are very flat". Hehe.

[Silverwind]

Hang on, I did a terrible job at wording the question and now there's a misconception over what it is I'm actually asking!

I wasn't asking what speed the cars would be traveling at upon colliding with each other, I was asking how much damage they'd sustain. I wanted to know if the individual damage received by two cars colliding at 50mph would be double to the amount a single car would receive upon colliding with a wall at 100mph (assuming that the wall had an absorbance factor of 0, that both cars were traveling in polar opposite directions and that both collisions occurred in a vacuum)

It was put to me that the amount of individual damage received in the two car collision would be double to that of the car colliding with a wall at the same speed (due to the doubled speed of approach) but I disagreed on account of there only being 100mph worth of energy in the two car collision, which wouldn't accommodate for 200mph worth of damage. The misconception was due to me using the term "force of impact", hehe...

Anyways, case solved. Old Silver was right!

[GMG Mike]

If a car hits a wall at 50 MPH, it sustains 50 MPH "worth" of damage. The entire force of the car's momentum is used up crushing the front end of the car.

If two cars hit each other, perfectly head to head, and each car was going 50 MPH, you have 100 MPH worth of total damage but it's spread between two cars, so each car would receive about 50 MPH worth of damage.

Doubling the speed that a car hits a wall does not double the damage (at least if you are measuring the damage monetarily). For example, 1 MPH vs 2 MPH are probably about the same - you would just scratch the paint a bit.

[Silverwind]

If two cars hit each other, perfectly head to head, and each car was going 50 MPH, you have 100 MPH worth of total damage but it's spread between two cars, so each car would receive about 50 MPH worth of damage.

Yeah, exactly. That's what I thought.

Doubling the speed that a car hits a wall does not double the damage (at least if you are measuring the damage monetarily). For example, 1 MPH vs 2 MPH are probably about the same - you would just scratch the paint a bit.

Well, the difference might not be humanly noticeable, but twice the amount of energy has gone into damaging the car(s). That's actually how the debate started, and then we tried to determine the amount of damage each individual car would receive upon colliding at different speeds (as in, how fast a car would need to be traveling upon collision with a wall in order to receive an equivalent amount of damage to that of the two cars).

The answer is: two cars colliding with each other at 100mph and 50mph will respectively receive an equivalent amount of damage to that of a single car colliding with a wall at 50mph and 100mph. I think...

[Connors]

(takes a deep breath) OK OK If what they just said is right that means that 2 cars going at 50MPH and 100MPH hit each other head on they both receive about 75mph "worth" of damage because that's half the total.



PS: This whole thing looks pretty familiar...

[Silverwind]

Not exactly, because both cars will receive different amounts of damage. The slower car's damage will be equivalent to that of a single car hitting a wall at 100mph, while the faster car's damage will be equivalent to that of a car hitting a wall at 50mph.

[Silverwind]

Ack, I got the priest involved and now I'm totally confused again!