HIGH LIFE : Why Not <i> This</i> Penny for Your Thoughts?

Cecil Adams, whose “The Straight Dope” column has appeared in alternative newspapers since 1973, answered the following letter:

“If you dropped a penny off the top of the Empire State Building and it happened to hit someone in the head, would it go through them?”

“Given that the Empire State Building is 1,250 feet tall and ignoring such factors as wind resistance for the moment,” Adams replied, “a penny dropped from the top would hit the ground in approximately 8.8 seconds, having reached a speed of roughly 280 feet per second. This is not particularly fast. A low-powered .22- or .25-caliber bullet, to which a penny is vaguely comparable in terms of mass, typically has a muzzle velocity of 800 to 1,100 feet per second, with maybe 75 foot-pounds of energy.

“On top of this, we must consider that the penny would probably tumble while falling, and that the Empire State Building, like all tall buildings, is surrounded by strong updrafts, which would slow descent considerably. Thus, while you might conceivably inflict a fractured skull on some hapless victim, the penny would certainly not ‘go through them.’

“For the record, the Empire State folks claim no one has ever dropped anything off their building. The youth of New York being what they are, I have my doubts about this.”

The most difficult tongue-twister, according to Ken Parkin of Teeside, England, in the “Guinness Book of World Records” is said to be: “The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick.”

“We must, as a nation, work toward making our schools and colleges the kinds of places where learning is paramount, and football and basketball are not.”

--Howard Cosell, former sports announcer