Gun-loving India 'god-woman' shoots wedding guests

[Seth]

You are talking about terminal velocity. MM didn't say terminal velocity. He said velocity alone.

I assumed that you understood the bleedin obvious. Sorry.

For your information, if you shoot a bullet straight up, when it comes back down to Earth, it will ALWAYS be travelling at terminal velocity. The acceleration will have stopped long before it lands.
So when the bullet hits you on the head, the only factors influencing the damage it will do are it's mass and it's drag. Because it's mass is proportional to both it's momentum and it's terminal velocity.

No, it's kinetic energy is. It's mass is constant. The variables affecting lethality are kinetic energy and profile. In other words, it's mass combined with its velocity and whether the pointy-end hits first or not.

[Alan B]

All this is basic physics.
What we don't seem to know is what was the calibre of the bullets that caused the deaths. If they were 0.22 or even 0.38 (assuming a handgun), I would not expect their kinetic energy at impact to be sufficient to cause death.

[mistermack]

No, it's kinetic energy is. It's mass is constant. The variables affecting lethality are kinetic energy and profile. In other words, it's mass combined with its velocity and whether the pointy-end hits first or not.

What bollocks. The mass of the bullet that hits you is a variable. It might be a heavy bullet or a light bullet. There are lots of VARIETIES.

momentum (pl. momenta; SI unit kg · m/s) is the product of the mass and velocity of an object,

You do come out with some crap.

[Seth]

No, it's kinetic energy is. It's mass is constant. The variables affecting lethality are kinetic energy and profile. In other words, it's mass combined with its velocity and whether the pointy-end hits first or not.

What bollocks. The mass of the bullet that hits you is a variable. It might be a heavy bullet or a light bullet. There are lots of VARIETIES.

momentum (pl. momenta; SI unit kg · m/s) is the product of the mass and velocity of an object,

You do come out with some crap.

Your statement was imprecise. We're talking about a given bullet, not different ones. Bullet A has mass X. Bullet B has mass Y. Those masses never change at any point in the bullet's flight. Therefore, for any given bullet the lethality of the bullet striking a person is a function of its kinetic energy (which you might call momentum) which is a product of its mass and its velocity and it's profile, which determines its penetrative power and ability to cause physical damage to an organism.

Yes, bullet A with mass X that is 1/10th the mass of bullet B with mass Y will strike with less kinetic energy and therefore is likely to cause less physical damage.

Then again, you can toss a 10 lb. bowling ball at someones chest by hand and do minimal damage while at the same time killing him by firing a 15 grain .17cal projectile into his skull at 4000 fps.

Thus, kinetic energy at impact and profile (initial contact surface area) are the determining factors of the projectile in projectile lethality.

[mistermack]

You're trolling again.

I forgot that much of your bollocks was deliberate.