if you dropped a coin

zаph

from space, would it cause an earthquake when it landed?

Gilgamesh

no

no, because it would reach its terminal velocity beforehand, so it's momentum couldn't increase. Also, the air resistance would probably take slivers off the coin, reducing its mass and decreasing its momentum aswell.

zаph

would it cause a tidal wave if it landed in the sea?

no, for the above reason.

egan007

Why would you expect a coin to cause an earthquark when meteors dont?

dudara

Terminal velcoty means that it is limited to a maximum speed, and in fairness, the friction due to re-entry into the earth's atmosphere would probably cause it to melt.

zаph

What if there was no atmosphere on a planet? there would be no limit to the falling speed/momentum. by dropping from high enough we could accelerate it to any speed we wanted.

Gilgamesh

no we couldn't

zаph

Gilgamesh wrote:

no we couldn't

why?

terminal velocity

zаph

but i thought there is no terminal velocity in the absence of air resistance.

its the air resistance that limits speed, right?

meditraitor

z&#1072 wrote: »

What if there was no atmosphere on a planet? there would be no limit to the falling speed/momentum. by dropping from high enough we could accelerate it to any speed we wanted.

As someone pointed out before, objects falling increase speed until they reach a terminal velocity (when the resistance around the object falling through the air is equal to the weight of the object)

Grain of salt will fall at 4.5 mph
Humans (about) WILL FALL AT 125MPH
and rain drops at about 20mph

Hope this explains

Hypothetically speaking if the object was falling through a vacuum it would keep speeding up, but I never heard of an earthquake in a vacuum(re original quastion)

Ishmael

z&#1072 wrote: »

What if there was no atmosphere on a planet? there would be no limit to the falling speed/momentum. by dropping from high enough we could accelerate it to any speed we wanted.

not to the speed of light

terminal velocity

how if there is no atmosphere?

egan007

But Why .....
I think we are talking to a 7 year old with a lolly

Gilgamesh

/edit, killed that before I start talking about something I have no idea of
think I will stick to the yes and nos,
didn't they explain something similar in Mythbusters too?
about dropping a coin from the Empire state building and killing someone with it

zаph

not to the speed of light

ok. but the question was more about momentum than speed. by dropping the coin from high enough to a planet with no atmoshere it could be accelerated to enough momentum to cause an earthquake. boom!!!!!!

meditraitor

z&#1072 wrote: »

ok. but the question was more about momentum than speed. by dropping the coin from high enough to a planet with no atmoshere it could be accelerated to enough momentum to cause an earthquake. boom!!!!!!

A planet with no atmosphere? air is not the only factor with resistance! gravity is also a form of resistance, this would rule any and how much velocity an object would have falling from space,

zаph

how can gravity be a resistance? i thought gravity just pulls.

meditraitor

z&#1072 wrote: »

how can gravity be a resistance? i thought gravity just pulls.

:rolleyes: come back when your finished dude, :rolleyes: best advise is to forget anything you have ever learnt about physics and start again

zаph

meditraitor wrote:

:rolleyes: come back when your finished dude, :rolleyes: best advise is to forget anything you have ever learnt about physics and start again

what else does gravity do then??

Earth isn't the only place with gravity.

rubadub

I hear it was a russian comsomonauts stray turd falling from space that caused the indian tsunami's.

They did the penny falling from a building on mythbusters and it didn't work,

zаph

Deleted User wrote:

Earth isn't the only place with gravity.

yeah, so?

meditraitor

z&#1072 wrote: »

what else does gravity do then??

Its lovely if you put some onions in it and pour it on a nice medium stake!!

Son Goku

Can somebody explain how gravity has resistence?

StonedParadoX

what about going back in time like in them movies like in star trek?

u go fast enough? cant one push the coin a bit faster? .. make it an anti meltable coin?

Son Goku

StonedParadoX wrote:

what about going back in time like in them movies like in star trek?

It might be possible and I stress "might". We haven't a quantum theory of gravity so there are certain theoritical issues we haven't solved.

seamus

Even if there were no air, it's unlikely you could create a tsunami or an earthquake with a penny.

The effect of gravity is dependent on a couple of things. All objects exert gravity on each other. The larger the two objects attracting eachother, the greater the attraction. The further away they are, the lesser the attraction.

This results in a functionality that to put the penny at a distance that it could develop significant speed (and therefore power) to cause an earthquake, it would be so far away that it could take millions, if not billions of years to reach the planet, and in that time it would be subject to gravitational (and other) forces from other astronomical objects, meaning that it would probably never get there.

So, the answer is no.

nesf

The answer is no.

It will still be no after I close this.

Don't feed the trolls people. I will ban people for doing so if they don't do it in an amusing and unusual way.