Nunchaku deadliness
ru...@eggneb.astro.ucla.edu
I've received several questions/comments about that "2000x the force" comment I
made, so I thought I'd elaborate. I'm Sorry if I gave the impression that I knew
this as a fact, but I did get it from what I consider a very reliable source.
I read in Ed Parker's book entitled something like "Guide to the Nunchaku" that
it takes 8 psi (pounds per square inch) of pressure to crush a human skull and
that a Nunchaku can deliver 16,000 psi. I meant to use the word "pressure"
(which is force per unit area), but wrote "force" without thinking.
I assume that Parker knew almost nothing about physics to be able to calculate
this himself (I think that he was a Psych + Soc major at BYU), but he was such
an informed and responsible person that he wouldn't say something like this
unless he got it from a very reliable source. Of course, that's only my
assumption.
Pressure is the key parameter here, not force or momentum.
Pressure = Force / Area
= (Mass * Acceleration) / Area
Therefore: high acceleration --> high pressure --> much pain.
It is true that a baseball bat has more mass than a nunchaku, but one can give a
nunchaku a MUCH greater acceleration (basically, because of the "whipping"
motion), which is the reason why it so destructive.
Note that all of this doesn't take into one's ability to use weapons.
I'd rather have a bat than nunchakus any day, but I'd change my mind if
I were magically made an expert at using both.
Please enlighten me if you think that any of this reasoning is wrong. Believe it
or not, it is very easy for physicists to get confused on these simple problems
when they haven't done anything like them in 8 years.
-Brian
Joel Stave
|> I read in Ed Parker's book entitled something like "Guide to the Nunchaku" that
|> it takes 8 psi (pounds per square inch) of pressure to crush a human skull and
|> that a Nunchaku can deliver 16,000 psi. I meant to use the word "pressure"
|> (which is force per unit area), but wrote "force" without thinking.
Here's an experiment to do. Go to your bathroom scale and push on
it with two fingertips until it says 8 pounds. Unless you have *really*
thick fingers, this will equal quite a bit more than 8 psi. Feel how
little pressure this is? That quote of 8 psi to crush a human skull is
just plain wrong. To my mind this casts doubt on the "16000 psi" as well.
--
Joel Stave
st...@apollo.hp.com
Joel Stave
In article <1993May20.0...@mic.ucla.edu>, ru...@eggneb.astro.ucla.edu () writes:
|> Therefore: high acceleration --> high pressure --> much pain.
Another finger experiment. Go find a phonograph (remember them?)
You may need to go to a museum to find one. Let the stylus rest
on your finger. You now have several hundred psi resting on that
point on your finger - not much pain is there?
Now take a 200 pound weight and put it on a 1 inch square on your
hand. I haven't actually done this but I'd be willing to bet that
it would hurt a lot more than the phonograph stylus.
--
Joel Stave
st...@apollo.hp.com
Brian Rush
OK, as many have very simply pionted out, the numbers are obviously
wrong. But it's still true that pressure is the important factor.
Marc Evensen
>OK, as many have very simply pionted out, the numbers are obviously
>wrong. But it's still true that pressure is the important factor.
Pressure is *one* of the important factors in a problem like this.
The actual damage is (as a previous poster indicated) caused by the
response of the tissues to a transfer of energy. This is a much
more complicated set of computations which I don't believe could
be discussed over the net among lay physicists, biomechanists,
materials scientists, physiologists, and pathologists. These professions
include all of the information which you would *need* to answer the
question in a quantitative manner. Instead, allow me to propose a
qualitative analysis:
1. When swung properly, both can kill or maim an individual.
2. Nunckaku are harder to swing (much less properly).
3. Nunchaku are harder to buy in the neighborhood sporting good store.
(Probably would be even if they were legal)
The reason that baseball bats are not illegal is that they have a use
other than maiming people, it's an integral part of "America's favorite
pastime". (I know, nunchaku could be used to beat grains, or some such
use from their origins, but let's stay urban)
The reason that nunchaku are illegal may be ignorance, reputation, or
ability to harass people, but the are, and until the martial arts
community has lobbying power, this will probably not change.
-- Marc
Marc Evensen
E-mail: eam...@orion.oac.uci.edu
"Those who are skilled in combat do not become angered,
those who are skilled at winning do not become afraid.
Thus the wise win before the fight, while the ignorant fight to win."
David Plumpton
ru...@eggneb.astro.ucla.edu writes:
>OK, as many have very simply pionted out, the numbers are obviously
>wrong. But it's still true that pressure is the important factor.
Isn't damage more strongly related to kinetic energy?
Sam Hulick
>1. When swung properly, both [bat & nunchaku] can kill or maim an individual.
Very true.
>2. Nunckaku are harder to swing (much less properly).
For you, maybe. Personally, I'd rather fight w/ nunchaku than a bat,
for a few reasons. #1, after you do a mighty swing with the bat, you're
wide open. The mass of the beat leaves you some effort to escape the
huge "follow-through" that the bat has. You can strike as hard as you
want with nunchaku. Some people think (I used to think this, too) that
the faster/harder you swing the chuck, the more likely it is that you're
gonna smash yourself. :) Basically, once you learn where you can catch
the chuck without hurting yourself, you're ok. (in my experience, at
least). Land the chain on your body, not the wooden part. :) And you
can make up your own sets/routines by practicing. And it's not like
practicing a headbutt (regarding that thread a few months ago :). Just
practice slowly and you won't have to worry about killing yourself.
--
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Sam Hulick \ | I don't speak for IU, \ "Uhhh, I don't know."
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"All kids love Log." \| UCS JumpStart Assistant \
Steve Gombosi
>MarcE...@uci.edu (Marc Evensen) writes:
>>1. When swung properly, both [bat & nunchaku] can kill or maim an individual.
>
>Very true.
>
>>2. Nunckaku are harder to swing (much less properly).
>
>For you, maybe. Personally, I'd rather fight w/ nunchaku than a bat,
So would I. Oh, excuse me....let me rephrase:
I'd *much* rather fight someone who is armed with a nunchaku
than someone who is armed with a bat. Especially if I'm carrying
a jacket.
>for a few reasons. #1, after you do a mighty swing with the bat, you're
>wide open.
Actually, Sam, the jo/ken/aiki practitioners in this group could show you
a number of ways to wield that bat without leaving yourself "wide open".
It's pretty easy for someone with a staff to neutralize a nunchaku.
>The mass of the beat leaves you some effort to escape the
>huge "follow-through" that the bat has. You can strike as hard as you
>want with nunchaku. Some people think (I used to think this, too) that
>the faster/harder you swing the chuck, the more likely it is that you're
^^^^^
Gag!
>gonna smash yourself. :)
Actually, the opposite is true. The faster it's moving, the easier it is
to control the trajectory. This is because, when moving *really* fast,
centrifugal force straightens the chain/cord, making the nunchaku behave
like a rigid staff (Lauren, Mary, keep your smartass remarks to yourselves;-)).
There's a lesson there.
>Basically, once you learn where you can catch
>the chuck without hurting yourself, you're ok. (in my experience, at
>least).
This is somewhat akin to telling a swordsman that "once you learn
not to pick it up by the pointy part, you're ok" (advice which
would have benfitted at least one kama-carrying participant at
a kobujutsu seminar I once attended, but I digress).
> Land the chain on your body, not the wooden part. :) And you
>can make up your own sets/routines by practicing.
Well, you can make up your own sword sets by practicing, too -
but that won't make you Miyamoto Musashi. Of course, it might make
you *like* Miyamoto Musashi in at least one respect ;-).
Steve
Sam Hulick
>>for a few reasons. #1, after you do a mighty swing with the bat, you're
>>wide open.
>
>Actually, Sam, the jo/ken/aiki practitioners in this group could show you
>a number of ways to wield that bat without leaving yourself "wide open".
>
>It's pretty easy for someone with a staff to neutralize a nunchaku.
I wouldn't ever use nunchaku against a staff-wielder. I'd run. :)
>>The mass of the beat leaves you some effort to escape the
>>huge "follow-through" that the bat has. You can strike as hard as you
>>want with nunchaku. Some people think (I used to think this, too) that
>>the faster/harder you swing the chuck, the more likely it is that you're
> ^^^^^
>Gag!
Sorry, habit. :) "Nunchucks," and each stick is a "chuck"! :)
>Actually, the opposite is true. The faster it's moving, the easier it is
>to control the trajectory. This is because, when moving *really* fast,
>centrifugal force straightens the chain/cord, making the nunchaku behave
>like a rigid staff (Lauren, Mary, keep your smartass remarks to yourselves;-)).
>There's a lesson there.
Unless you go for the under-the-armpit catch and smack yourself in the
back of the head. ;)
>Steve
By the way, you'll all be happy to know that the infamous NUNCHAKU
WALLET (tm) passed the WATERMELLON test! That's right! Before our
Kwality Technician even put his hand on the Tuff-Chain (tm), the
watermelon got up and ran away! How's THAT for performance?
:)
Ken Gee
>The actual damage is (as a previous poster indicated) caused by the
>response of the tissues to a transfer of energy. This is a much
>more complicated set of computations which I don't believe could
>be discussed over the net among lay physicists, biomechanists,
>materials scientists, physiologists, and pathologists. These professions
>include all of the information which you would *need* to answer the
>question in a quantitative manner. Instead, allow me to propose a
I would postulate that the actual damage is proportional to to the
amount of energy transfered to the tissues. If this is the case, the damage
would be largely determined by two things: 1) the amount of energy available,
and 2) the impedance match between the object delivering the energy and the
object receiving the energy.
The kinetic energy of an object in motion is 1/2MV**2. The energy is
therefore proportional to mass of the object and proportional to the square
of the velocity at which it is moving. Doubling the velocity results in an
increase of 4X the kinetic energy.
Probably of greater relevance to the issue is the impedance match
between the bat or nunchaku and the body. Though you might be able to gen-
erate greater energy with with the nunchaku due to the velocity squared
advantage, I doubt that all this energy gets transferred in the strike. The
nunchaku tends to bounce off the body. (I've bounced them off the back of
my head lots of times.) Whatever energy remains in the motion of the nunchaku
is energy that has not been transferred to the body.
Another factor to consider is that the bat, being a rigid object, is
able to transmit force from the body of the striker to the person being
struck. This is the principle we use when we practice extension in our
boken strikes. This is also the principle a baseball player uses when he
follows through on hitting the ball. Since the nunchaku is hinged in the
middle by cord or chain, it is impossible to apply force through the chain
in a direction normal(perpendicular) to it (or axially away from you for that
matter). The only energy available is the kinetic energy of the nunchaku.
Much of what I have touched on is fairly obvious from every day
experiences: try pounding nails with a 8oz hammer as compared to a 16 oz
hammer. If you swing it twice as fast, you will be generating twice the
energy as the 16 oz hammer. The result is that it bounces off the nail
farther and drives it in less.
I'm sure that there are lots of other factors involved, but given the
choice, I would rather get hit with the nunchaku.
Ken
Matt Brandt
writes:
{ lots of explaination of why nunchaku can hit harder than a bat }
I think you are missing the point here. What does damage is energy imparted.
Given a particular muscle movement and effort you should (in an ideal world :)
get the same energy into each weapon. How much of that energy can be
transferred to the skull of your imaginary opponent depends on several things.
The nunchak will tend to bounce back from the skull more. Then again the skull
will tend to bounce back from the bat more. The bat will generate a wider area
of trauma. The nunchak will be more likely to penetrate (gruesome thought).
It's probably a wash. The reason the nunchak seems to swing faster is that only
half of it is swinging for a given amount of energy. It won't change the final
equation though.
Personally I wouldn't want to get hit with either...
matt
Tye Botting, SysAdmin
% I would postulate that the actual damage is proportional to to the
% amount of energy transfered to the tissues. If this is the case, the damage
How about the energy _density_ transferred to the tissues? That'd
take care of slow strikes vs. fast strikes as well as large objects
vs. small objects w/ the same energy.
war...@pro-haven.cts.com Warlock 6 ventilations & 2 tats
war...@tamu.edu Tye Botting N.Shaolin/N.Praying Mantis
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Robert Roth
JS> From: st...@apollo.hp.com (Joel Stave)
JS> Subject: Re: Nunchaku deadliness
--> high pressure --> much pain.
JS> You may need to go to a museum to find one. Let the stylus rest
JS> on your finger. You now have several hundred psi resting on that
JS> point on your finger - not much pain is there?
JS> Now take a 200 pound weight and put it on a 1 inch square on your
JS> hand. I haven't actually done this but I'd be willing to bet that
JS> it would hurt a lot more than the phonograph stylus.
I like to have a continuous set of responses for all contingencies.
This ranges from "Yes sweety":-) to shot guns and high explosives.
In an attempt to fit Nunchaku into this progression I experimented
with such situations as breaking pine boards and 500 pound marauding
hogs rooting in my garden.
Result A: Painful looking dent in board. Board doesn't break.
Result B: Dirty Nunchaku. Ominous grunt. Hog still rooting in garden.
Conclusion: Good Sling shot fills this niche better than Nunchaku.
Osensi Eizo Shimabukuro implied the existence of the "real"
Nunchaku weapon. Unfortunately he decided not to show it to me.
Weapon.
... Open mouth, insert foot, echo internationally.
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jason c Chan
> with such situations as breaking pine boards and 500 pound marauding
> hogs rooting in my garden.
>
> Result A: Painful looking dent in board. Board doesn't break.
> Result B: Dirty Nunchaku. Ominous grunt. Hog still rooting in garden.
>
> Conclusion: Good Sling shot fills this niche better than Nunchaku.
>
> Osensi Eizo Shimabukuro implied the existence of the "real"
> Nunchaku weapon. Unfortunately he decided not to show it to me.
> Weapon.
>
The density of the wood might have something to do with it. Also,
how proficient are you with the chucks? Pigkiller? ;)
Jason
Robert Gillespie
> with such situations as breaking pine boards and 500 pound marauding
> hogs rooting in my garden.
>
> Result A: Painful looking dent in board. Board doesn't break.
> Result B: Dirty Nunchaku. Ominous grunt. Hog still rooting in garden.
>
> Conclusion: Good Sling shot fills this niche better than Nunchaku.
>
I might suggest that you were using rubber nunchaku or that you swung with
something less than full conviction.
Hogs can be pretty effective killers, also note the effectiveness of
the bando boar style, the the pig style of Greenoch (Green Acres).
This kind of sounds like a shaggy hog story to me, I'm surprised the
animal did not do you in immediately.
I know a veterinarian, who when practicing porcine medicine, carries
a .357 magnum in case things get out of hand with a large animal. It
sort of shocks the yuppies with the Vietnamese pot bellied pigs, however.
rg
Ken Gee
rober...@hal9k.com (Robert Roth) writes:
> with such situations as breaking pine boards and 500 pound marauding
> hogs rooting in my garden.
>
pen and got into my garden. I'd chase them out by thwacking them across the
rear with a two by four. This didn't always work real well; the animals are
incredibly tough. I doubt that a nunchaku would have much effect on a hog
unless you went after its feet or its snout.
Ken
Terry Chan
+> with such situations as breaking pine boards and 500 pound marauding
+> hogs rooting in my garden.
g...@col.hp.com (Ken Gee) writes:
+ I used to live on a farm where the hogs routinely broke out of
+their pen and got into my garden. I'd chase them out by thwacking
+them across the rear with a two by four. This didn't always work
+real well; the animals are incredibly tough. I doubt that a nunchaku
+would have much effect on a hog unless you went after its feet or its
+snout.
Which seems to make sense given their origins as agricultural
implements as opposed to animal husbandry. I hear they're
great for brushing your teeth though.
Terry "MMMMM...ham" Chan
--
Energy and Environment Division | Internet: TWC...@lbl.gov
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory |
Berkeley, California USA 94720 | Don't worry, I'm loaded.
Robear
> I used to live on a farm where the hogs routinely broke out of their
>pen and got into my garden. I'd chase them out by thwacking them across the
>rear with a two by four. This didn't always work real well; the animals are
>incredibly tough. I doubt that a nunchaku would have much effect on a hog
>unless you went after its feet or its snout.
Oh, yeah, the feet. Those little things down in the dirt with 400 pounds
of pissed porker above them? Yeah, let me just see...<swishshick*THWACK*>
Oh shit he's moving maybe the snout <swishswish*THMISH*> oh SHIT where's
the FENCE goddamn electrics how do they MOVE that fast
he's not going to stop for the fence is he
wonder if i can make the car pigs are carnivorous arent they NICE piggie
David "wish i had my bat" Pipes
Bennett Crowell
>Subject: Re: Nunchaku deadliness
>Date: 1 Jun 1993 15:21:51 GMT
Anyone for a boar spear with a nice large crossbar?
Bennett Crowell
PNC...@ccvax1.cc.ncsu.edu or bcro...@chemdept.chem.ncsu.edu
Mitch Gunzler
>I like to have a continuous set of responses for all contingencies.
> This ranges from "Yes sweety":-) to shot guns and high explosives.
>
> In an attempt to fit Nunchaku into this progression I experimented
> with such situations as breaking pine boards and 500 pound marauding
> hogs rooting in my garden.
>
> Result A: Painful looking dent in board. Board doesn't break.
> Result B: Dirty Nunchaku. Ominous grunt. Hog still rooting in garden.
Um, you got within nunchaku range of a 500 pound marauding hog and tried
to get its attention? Kids, don't try this at home.
Mitch