If i drop a cockroach....

[Joeyyungrocks]

I was thinking if we were to drop a cockroach off the empire state building would it die and splatter? or would he walk away fine?
How about an ant? or rhino bettle, rolly polly? a worm?
If any of these things would die if they were dropped from that height would they die at a lower height?

If they dont die would they die at a higher height?

Just something that was "bugging" me

[swede123]

An actual scientific (kind of) question that actually can be tested out by yourself w/o too much effort.

Swede

[trapsetter]

If you dropped a cockroach off the empire state building, assuming he couldnt fly to safety, yes, it would die. The impact from the fall out crush its body.

i'm guessing the same is true for an ant.

[econophile]

i think the terminal velocity of a cockroach is probably not very high

and the empire state building should be plenty high to for the bug to achieve terminal velocity, so increasing the height won't make a difference

edit: a way to determine an object's terminal velocity from wikipedia

"One simple small scale method is to hang an object out of a car window by a thin string. The terminal velocity of the object is the speed of the car when the object hangs at a 45° angle."

so try this out and get back to us

[Joeyyungrocks]

my question came from seeing bugs fall off like buildings and like trees and they dont seem to be hurt they just get up and start crawling again like nothing happened

[MelchyBeau]

I've seen a show on ants with this idea. they will survive the fall b/c of terminal velocity

[pudley4]

[ QUOTE ]
I've seen a show on ants with this idea. they will survive the fall b/c of terminal velocity

[/ QUOTE ]

So tie a brick to it. Problem solved.

[lgas]

You know that "terminal velocity" means the velocity at which a falling stops accelerating towards the ground, and not anything to do with whether that object will die or not, right?

Or in other words, a falling cockroach might very well reach terminal velocity but still survive the impact.

I have no idea about the answer to the original question though.

[econophile]

lgas,

to clarify my post for you, i don't think a cockroach's terminal velocity is fast enough for it to die on impact

[lgas]

That makes more sense. The way your post was worded it seemed to me you were trying to suggest that it's terminal velocity was low (ala the string experiment) and therefore it would die easily.

FWIW, I agree that it seems likely that there is no height you can drop a cockroach from that will kill it... although dropping it from a great height into a volcano should do the trick.