I’m gonna test the limits of the subreddit community name. I was watching some baseball on some edibles and I had a thought if it’d be possible to get hit just right by a baseball to take a chunk of a person out. You know like an anime shot.

I assume it’d have to be a massive force that isn’t possible. But maybe it is and no one’s tried because they’re not sadistic?

  • antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    2·
    10 hours ago

    I don’t think it’s possible from a bat at any force. The ball would unravel and slow from wind before it hits the person and at worst it would just knock them back.

  • palordrolap@fedia.io
    6·
    16 hours ago

    The Waterjet Channel used to do things like this. They’d launch stuff out of an air cannon at a torso made of ballistics gel on what seemed like a regular basis.

    And I daresay The Slow Mo Guys, if not also the OG Mythbusters must have done something similar at some point, not that I can call anything specific to mind right now.

  • MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca
    10·
    18 hours ago

    I’m not physicist, but I’d imagine the force required to propel the ball to that speed would also disintegrate the ball itself?

    The shape of the ball would exert the force over a relatively large area compared to a bullet, and the ball material is much weaker than metal objects that would blow through people (ie cannonballs).

    So the force required would increase due to larger surface area, but then the ball would break apart from said force. The solution is a metal baseball propelled by a railgun.

    Now to just find victims test subjects to trial it.

    • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      18 hours ago

      That might be okay though. The ball doesn’t necessarily have to be intact when it hits the pitcher - if it becomes a stream of smaller particles they still might be energetic enough to do the job.

      • MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca
        7·
        18 hours ago

        True, but also, go big or go home. We’re already talking about murdering someone by accelerating a baseball through their body. Might as well make their body turn into a fine mist, same jailtime.

  • yesman@lemmy.world
    132·
    20 hours ago

    The interesting question is how does the pitcher hit themselves? Throw the ball around the world? Portal gun?

        • criss_cross@lemmy.worldOP
          4·
          16 hours ago

          Yeah I was thinking the batter would hit the ball hard enough to swing back and strike right through the pitcher. Not that the pitcher would hit themselves.

          My bad on my unclear question.

        • iamthetot@piefed.caEnglish
          1·
          16 hours ago

          What was OP’s mistake?

          Unless it has been edited to be more clear, the question (complete with “pass through a pitcher”) makes sense as it is written.

          • someguy3@lemmy.world
            1·
            15 hours ago

            I read it as a pitcher throwing a baseball through a batter (batters are the ones that typically have balls coming at them). Though he now says a batter hitting a ball through a pitcher.

            • iamthetot@piefed.caEnglish
              1·
              15 hours ago

              You reading it that way does not mean the OP made a mistake. Pitchers are struck by hit pitches with some degree of regularity.

    • Ioughttamow@fedia.io
      2·
      19 hours ago

      I assume they’d be sentenced to be blown from a gun, but with one of those auto pitchers from a batting cage

  • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
    12·
    21 hours ago

    I don’t have the knowledge of physics or math to figure it out, but I suppose we could find something that definitely can rip through someone, like a small cannonball, and figure out how much force it would put on the body, and adjust the mass and size for a baseball and see how much speed you’d need to get that amount of force?

    • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works
      121·
      20 hours ago

      Cannonballs are insanely OP. Mythbusters shot a small cannon once; it blew entirely through their backstop and rolled through a few houses before stopping. Your method will result in an overestimate.

      • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        18 hours ago

        That’s okay, an overestimate provides a bracket. If the cannon turns out to be way too much, we know the right speed is somewhere between human-thrown and cannon-fired. Then it’s a matter of reducing the parameters until they’re barely enough to work.

      • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
        3·
        20 hours ago

        I was thinking that might be the case, but I’m not sure what would get us closer to the minimum force required to punch holes in someone.

        • MBech@feddit.dk
          7·
          19 hours ago

          I have an idea. We take the richest person in the world, and gradually shoot them with faster and faster baseballs until we have an answer. If, by unlucky circumstances, the person should perish, we take the next richest person.

        • Successful_Try543@feddit.org
          3·
          19 hours ago

          As long as their dimensions are identical, the actual force of a cannonball or a baseball hitting a body isn’t dramatically different, as it’s determined how much force the body can withstand until it’s penetrated. – By measuring the initial velocity and the velocity of the ball leaving the body after penetration, you can calculate the energy required to punch a hole through thad body.