MythBusters

The story goes something like this:

A motorcycle rider hits an object in the road (ranges from a possum to a fallen tree). The force of the impact launches the rider many feet into the air to impact a telephone pole cross bar whereupon he is impaled. Stuck. Like a pig on a spit. A bug on a pin.

A fella recently related this tale to me with the assertions that he had personally known the rider and had inspected the tree laying across the road said rider had hit (about 18" across). I was using the occasion of this fellas' telling of the tale to illustrate the fact he is, in fact, a liar to a friend of mine, Chris.

Chris is a physicist and got to wondering just how that would work..... Needless to say, a few beers and 20 minutes later he had this prepared:




Disclaimer: This was quick and dirty, and used perfect conditions since it was for the purposes of testing the possibility of such an occurrence. Go easy on the boy, Gregg. Though, I did warn him....

So it looks like that '63 Panhead would had to have been runnin' close to 550mph when it hit that log, and the forks would have had to be infinitely rigid, the log would have to have been infinitely massive and infinitely hard.