Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2013 22:57:43 -0500
From: "Mike B." <yahoo at omniphile.com>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: weaponized ping-pong balls
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

On 2/11/2013 8:04 PM, Tamar Lindsay wrote:
>> How fast you get hit
>
> I'm thinking more of the range.
> Relatively few people can throw
> a rock hard enough to kill someone
> with one hit at, say, 300 feet.
> I suspect the range on the ping-pong rocket
> is rather farther than that, and
> it could be used from, e.g., an
> apartment window (or a tower,
> or an alley, or a van).

I seriously doubt that the ping pong cannon has a range anywhere near
300 feet with enough force to damage a person.  There just isn't that
much mass in a ping-pong ball, and it's got a huge surface area compared
to that.  It's going to slow down really fast after leaving the gun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_equation

Note that the drag is a function of the square of the velocity, so all
else being equal, the faster you go, the more drag you have, and it's
exponential.

Now, if it was a golf ball...

-- Mike B.