Injury Factors

What factors will affect how badly the pedestrian is injured by the coin?

Some useful search keywords might be:

  • kinetic energy
  • Newton's laws
  • Work done
  • Deceleration
  • Force

Depending on how much velocity the coin has built up the more damage it can do. The more force a coin will hit an object the deeper it could cut into it doing more damage.

What determines how much force is generated by a falling coin?

Where the coin hits a person also can effect the damage done if it hits a person on the arm it would only cut their arm and worst case scenario would entail it having to be surgically removed. If it hit them in the skull it would cut through into their brain almost like a bullet and killing them.

The coin will fall into an upright position, but if it stayed in a flat position it would reach terminal velocity faster, but it would be significantly lower. This is a factor which should be considered when the coin is falling. See the diagram.

Can we guess how a coin will tend to fall? Why?

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