RE: (TFT) Shield rush in Melee --> Momentum of heavy blows.

["rsmith" <rsmith@lightspeed.ca>]

>I would be curious, though, if any studies have been done as to the
>momentum, etc. of sword swings, punches, etc. Or at least some sort of
>velocity measurement.

	I don't know about any studies but I 
could guess.  I can bring my hand from over
my head, a bit behind me to pointing at my
knee in 3/4 of a second about.

	 Let us pretend that I was strong 
enough to swing a sword about that fast and
that it was a meter long.

	Call it 180 degrees with a radius of
175 cm.  The circumference of a circle is 
2PI r, so the tip of that sword is moving
about 5.5 meters in 3/4 of a second.  Call it
7.33 meters / second.  However that is for
just the tip, a bit further up toward the
center would be, say 6.0 m/s.

	If the sword was 2 kg, then the 
momentum would be 12.0 kg m / s.  You would 
feel that!

	Let us say that you were standing on 
perfectly slippery ice and you massed 100 kg
with weapons and armor.  Someone hits you 
with a smack such as I described above.  You
would be sliding backwards after the blow by
0.11 meters per second.

	I could easily see my estimate being 
off by a factor of 2, but I would doubt that
my guess is off by a factor of 10.  So in
summary, there is enough momentum to knock 
you off balance maybe, but it won't send
you flying.

	This should be true with most weapons.
To do damage you want to have a high kinetic
energy not a high momentum.  Since K.E. is
proportional to velocity squared, a lighter
faster weapon will be better at penetration
etc., than a slightly heavier but slightly 
slower weapon.  Bullets are a perfect example
of this.

	Rick
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