Ants Fall

The is no height that would kill an ant because it's terminal velocity is too low.

With atmosphere, or in vacuum?

File: Cheetah.jpg (63KB, 768x573px) Image search: [Google]

63KB, 768x573px

they won't die.

an object falling over a long distance will eventually reach "terminal velocity"; that is, the deceleration due to air resistance (drag) will counterbalance the acceleration due to gravity, and the object won't get any faster.
because gravitational acceleration is a constant 9.8 m/s^2 (decently close to the earth's surface), drag force is a function of speed and of the object's surface area profile, and drag acceleration is the drag force divided by the mass of the object, that terminal velocity is going to depend on the object's mass and shape. because surface area varies as the square of length (roughly speaking) and mass varies as the cube of length, larger objects will tend to have higher terminal velocities.

terminal velocity for a human is something like 53 m/s, easily enough to splatter you into goop. for an ant, it's more like 2 m/s. that's something they can easily withstand.

>>7976474
Vacuum

>>7976485
>Vacuum

Then it would suffocate no matter what.

>>7976494
Ants need no air. They are not mammals.

>>7976497
Best post of the day.

>>7976497
Yes they do. even trees need some fresh air

>>7976497
topkek

File: 1452421256763.png (84KB, 430x174px) Image search: [Google]

84KB, 430x174px

>>7976497
lad...

File: didn't sign up for this shit.jpg (23KB, 356x398px) Image search: [Google]

23KB, 356x398px

>>7976497
Is this real life...

Assuming an ant didn't need to breathe, how far would an ant have to fall to die?

.. just finishing up my really tall vacuum project, will post results

>>7976484
actually, when people hit the ground at free fall, they remain more or less intact. human skin is surprisingly resilient.

that said, if you hit the concrete or another hard surface, most of your organs will exit through your anus at high speed and your brains are gonna get knocked out of your broken skull.

but you dont splatter into goop. (you also dont explode when exposed to hard vacuum)

>>7976484
Ok so how fast would you have to throw an ant toward the ground to kill it?

File: Only the dead can know peace from this evil.png (49KB, 565x580px) Image search: [Google]

49KB, 565x580px

>>7976497
hello darkness my old friend...

>>7976595
fair enough point. I was mostly talking about what happens to the internal organs on impact.
this is getting into some Byford Dolphin territory at this point though...

File: 1445205729499.jpg (23KB, 448x373px) Image search: [Google]

23KB, 448x373px

>>7976627
You can't kill the ground by throwing ants at it

>>7976634
You obviously aren't using enough ants.

File: 1459372612268.jpg (133KB, 728x636px) Image search: [Google]

133KB, 728x636px

>>7976497

File: 1459063025758.png (329KB, 500x600px) Image search: [Google]

329KB, 500x600px

>>7976497

>>7976595

when you fall your milli @?@A@ A a @@a qa qa Aaaaaaa @@a qq ( hA@aA@ A@aA@@@@AAaaa@@@@@@@aw a Aaaaaaa aaaaaaa @ @@@A qAAQq

File: 1457643448045.png (575KB, 739x496px) Image search: [Google]

575KB, 739x496px

>>7976497

File: 4956335709_6f960ae96f.jpg (107KB, 500x348px) Image search: [Google]

107KB, 500x348px

I'm not sure about ants. But I used to work in a science lab at a university that had cockroach issues. There were researches in the building that worked with fruit flies so no pesticides of any type were allowed to be sprayed. Combine that with the fact we were making tons of growth media for bacteria in our lab and that equals roach problem.

When working late at night I would catch roaches and put them in test tubes and spin them in the centrifuge up to very high speeds. They could take 200 G with no issue. After about 400 G they would be knocked out for a little while but come around and be fine. At like 10,000 G their organs would liquify and squeeze out of their exoskeletons leaving a hollow shell much like when you find cicada shells on trees.

My point is that insect exoskeletons are amazingly strong. Even at thousands of G it doesn't break under its own weight.

>>7976827
Good story.

>My point is that insect exoskeletons are amazingly strong.
The exoskeleton is the sole reason arthropods are so successful at survival and proliferation. A marvel of evolution.

>>7976744
So long! .o/

>>7976827
>My point is that insect exoskeletons are amazingly strong.
So when will someone invent bug-strength phone cases and comfortable armor for humans?

>>7976660
Or just one ant going at a fraction of light speed

How long until someone invents an ant-shooting gun?

>>7976827
>When working late at night I would catch roaches and put them in test tubes and spin them in the centrifuge up to very high speeds.

Lol. I enjoyed this but I think you might have problems.

>>7976827

this is great.

what did you use to counterbalance the centrifuge?

>>7976497
Make a trip so I can pay special attention to your revelations

>>7976827
arthropod shells are only workable on small scales though due to the square-cube law. still cool.
also, my 7th-grade science teacher (this was a while ago) had an occasional problem with roaches coming out of his lab sinks, so he caught a roach and transfixed it to the bulletin board with a thumbtack as a warning to the others. then he took it down and threw it in the trash because he thought it was maybe a little barbaric. chill bro.

>>7978194
you don't need a gun for ant-shooting. just use a swatter.

>>7978211
probably just did roaches in batches

File: BTFO.png (174KB, 640x480px) Image search: [Google]

174KB, 640x480px

>>7976497

>>7978166
All speeds are a fraction of light speed. Be more specific, faggot.

>>7978506
>Be more specific,
A tiny fraction

>>7976505
But ants have no lungs not noses

>>7976471
>>7976484

OK, what's the smallest planet or other body with enough gravity for an ant to fall and die?

>>7978690
Depends on the drop height and the atmosphere.

>>7978690
a pebble, with enough gravitational force can kill an ant on impact

>>7976484
>gravitational acceleration is a constant

File: meteor size of an ant.jpg (2KB, 96x72px) Image search: [Google]

2KB, 96x72px

If an ant fell from space it would be high enough to kill it. It wouldn't die from going splat however.

Now which way would it die?
Would it burn up?
Or freeze to death?
Or suffocate?
Or die from cosmic radiation exposure/extreme sun burn?

>>7976497
(You)

>>7978971
>(decently close to the earth's surface)
finish reading the sentence, fgt

>>7978211
Water in an identical tube on the opposite side of the rotor. Just toss the tube with the roach in it on the scale, then add water to a 2nd tube until the masses are equal. That's pretty much how we balanced everything.

But it didn't really matter. It was in a 30 lb aluminum centrifuge rotor. The weight of the tiny test tube is so insignificant compared to the rotor that I could probably have run it with no balance at all and it would only have a minor vibration. Large lab centrifuges are built with industrial quality and last almost forever. I think this centrifuge was from the 80's and it was still going strong. You would have to do something really dumb to damage it.

File: Jeff-Bezos-Blue-Origin-Reusable-Rocket.png (961KB, 940x544px) Image search: [Google]

961KB, 940x544px

>>7979086
Falling from space won't cause you to burn up. The reason spaceships get so hot is because they are orbiting. Orbit involves a very high lateral velocity, not just altitude. Low Earth orbit requires an approximate velocity of 17,000 mph lateral velocity.

The Blue Origin space tourism rocket is just going to fly straight up into space, release the capsule, and fall straight back down. It won't need much of a heat shield, if any at all. It won't reach much more than supersonic speeds. You can reach supersonic speed in freefall at high altitude because there is almost no air to slow you down. But about 700 mph is nothing compared to 17,000 mph. Especially when you consider that kinetic energy goes up by the square of your velocity. It isn't linear.

So 17,000 mph has way way way more energy than 700 mph. Much more than 24X the energy which is what most people would assume.

That's why spaceships returning to Earth need a heat shield. They are carrying orders of magnitude more kinetic energy than something that is simply going to freefall straight down from space.

Also consider that a few people have jumped from very high altitude balloons on the edge of space and they didn't burn up or even get hot. Quite the opposite, they had to wear suits to keep them from freezing to death.

>>7979685
So lets say that an ant is orbiting the earth with a speed that results in the same amount of kinetic energy as the international space station. If it came back to earth how hard would it hit the ground. If the ant orients itself correctly in reentry couldn't the shape pierce through the air resistance barrier?

>>7979699
Would it even have enough mass/integrity to pierce the atmosphere, or would it insta-decelerate/belly flop into oblivion as soon as it encountered resistance?

>>7978205

Go back to R eddit if you feel sorry for insects.

>>7976595
You totally explode in a vacuum, just very slowly.

File: 111653469.jpg (1MB, 898x1024px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 898x1024px

>>7979699
It would burn up. Pretty much everything but high melting temperature metal and ceramics will burn up.

Pic related. Here is one of the helmets that was found from the debris of the space shuttle Columbia after it burned up. Notice how stuff like the visor and all the padding inside the helmet is simply gone.

And it wasn't even exposed to the heat of re-entry until the shuttle was well into the atmosphere meaning the shuttle had already decelerated quite a bit before it broke up. The helmet didn't even have to experience the entire re-entry from start to finish.

File: ant.png (12KB, 659x516px) Image search: [Google]

12KB, 659x516px

Alright so consider this. The ant re-orientates himself as depicted in this drawing on reentry and spins in order to mimic a pencil dive combined with a drill. Lets say this allows him to pierce the air resistance and atmosphere. How fast does he now need to go to die on impact.

>>7978971
It basically is within earths atmosphere

>>7979718
No you don't. There have been a few people who have survived being exposed to vacuum. One was in a space suit research accident. They were testing space suits inside a vacuum chamber and the suit lost pressure. The guy in the suit was exposed to near total vacuum for several seconds and he lived. He passed out but was OK. They restored pressure in the chamber relatively quickly.

I remember seeing him interviewed in a space documentary. He said the last thin he remembers was feeling the saliva in his mouth boil from the lack of pressure. That must feel really weird.

Wish I could remember what documentary that was from. I'd love to watch it again.

>>7979699
If an ant had the same kinetic energy as the ISS it would rocket off into space at a reasonable fraction of lightspeed.

What you mean is an an in the same orbit as the ISS, i.e with the same velocity

>>7979722
Very very fast, given what the cockroach scientist said