3 ms·
One big difference is the car has a crumple zone to absorb some impact, but the brick wall does not.
by _dark_matter_ 2y ago
One big difference is the car has a crumple zone to absorb some impact, but the brick wall does not.
- roarcher 2y agoIn reality yes, but I assume the thought experiment is meant to take place in Spherical Cow Land where all colliding objects can be considered the same. I'm also not sure how relevant the crumple zones were when this was first thought up, as cars haven't always had them.
- AlexandrB 2y agoThe simple fix to that is have the car hitting another, stationary car at 100mph. It's still a horrendous collision despite the 2x crumple zones.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoboth are crumpling, but the line between the cars does not change and acts as a wall. Imagine compressing two springs in a line vs one against a wall.