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February 9, 2007

Strange But True!

Q. You won't see football players out on the field lying on a bed of nails but the principle that permits this old stunt is applied again and again all game long. Can you nail this one down?

A. “Distribution of force,” says Timothy Gay in “Football Physics: The Science of the Game.” He demos this to classes using a bed-sized 3/4-inch-thick piece of plywood with several thousand uppointing 5-inch nails, spaced about an inch apart. “It looks positively medieval... I lie down on the thing and keep lecturing, making my point.” If Gay were to put all his weight on one nail or two or three ... yow! But at 500-1000 nails, the pressure on each is so small it won't puncture the skin.


 
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