Car crashes into giant block of Superball material

[eschereal]

@jz78817

not by a long shot.

anyway, this is a lot harder to answer than the foam question, since the “super ball” material is likely to tear apart under such an impact.

I am not sure I quite agree with this, based on first-hand experience. My friend took my superball (which I just liked to bounce while I was walking) and threw it into the sidewalk as hard as he could, resulting in about a 100’ bounce. After I retrieved it, I noticed that it was buzzing when it bounced. He tried another hard bounce, which then broke it into two unequal pieces.

A car at high speed has a lot more give to it than a sidewalk. I seriously doubt that the initial impact would split or tear a block of that size. And if you did the sensible thing, shaping the block to handle the impact optimally (not just a flat-faced cube), it would probably not be damaged to any discernible extent.

[Senegoid]

“That’s the way the Mercedes Benz!”

[burpo_the_wonder_mutt]

@TriPolar

I thought that was golf balls.

And… what happens if you put a Superball in a microwave. Probably nothing interesting but it may have been a good thing there weren’t microwave ovens around when I was a kid.

Didn’t golf balls have a powerful explosive in the center? And if you didn’t hit the ball just right…that makes no damn sense whatsoever. :o

[eschereal]

@burpo_the_wonder_mutt

Didn’t golf balls have a powerful explosive in the center? And if you didn’t hit the ball just right…that makes no damn sense whatsoever. :o

That sounds like a plot device from Kind Hearts and Coronets.

[astro]

A block of dense, rigid rubber that thick and massive is going to be a lot more like a concrete wall than a trampoline in terms of what will happen to the car. The car will disintegrate to a much larger extent than it bounces back.

[dropzone]

@TriPolar

I recall something about Superballs shattering if they’re hit hard enough.

The Gen 1 Superballs, which bounced MUCH better than the safer Gen 2 balls, often exploded quite spectacularly if you threw them hard enough. Not two pieces, but shrapnel flying at great speed in all directions. They were great!

[kaylasdad99]

@burpo_the_wonder_mutt

Didn’t golf balls have a powerful explosive in the center? And if you didn’t hit the ball just right…that makes no damn sense whatsoever. :o

I read an anecdote about 40 years ago, about a young mother who called the Poison Control Center in a panic because her toddler had managed to get the little ball out of a golf ball, and had bitten through it and ingested some of the fluid. A call to the manufacturer revealed that the gooey center was castor oil.