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Feats of Strength
May. 14th, 2010 05:55 pmBowling balls are *tough*. I was thinking about a scene where a character in a bowling alley intimidates some hecklers by palming a bowling ball (which probably requires more than human strength by itself, not to mention very large hands) and then twists it apart.
Unfortunately, I'm an engineer, so I started doing the math. :-) More unfortunately, I was feeling lazy, so I used the Internet to get some basic numbers. I looked up standard bowling balls and the materials they're made of and made estimates of typical human strength, then ran some equations. My (admittedly very rough) estimate is that to do that to a bowling ball, the person would have to be strong enough to be able to press (lift over their heads) more than fifty tonnes.
Which makes Adam Savage breaking a bowling ball by accident even more impressive. ;-)
Unfortunately, I'm an engineer, so I started doing the math. :-) More unfortunately, I was feeling lazy, so I used the Internet to get some basic numbers. I looked up standard bowling balls and the materials they're made of and made estimates of typical human strength, then ran some equations. My (admittedly very rough) estimate is that to do that to a bowling ball, the person would have to be strong enough to be able to press (lift over their heads) more than fifty tonnes.
Which makes Adam Savage breaking a bowling ball by accident even more impressive. ;-)
