[MR] Heavy Helms and inertia

[thumpa at mindspring.com]

War College <warcollege at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Going back to simple Physics , the equation F=MA comes 
into mind.  Force = Mass times Velocity.

A heavy helm will take more energy to move than a 
lighter one.  Then again, I could be misunderstanding F=MA. :-)  

Close... actually F=MA is mass times acceleration.  
Or you could say Force = Mass times Velocity squared

Or if helm B is twice as heavy as helm A then it will accelerate away at half the rate.  It will take the same amount of energy to recover from that acceleration and it will take twice as much energy to move out of the way of that head shot so you are twice as likely to have the blow land nice and heavy on the flat of the helm.     

A better comparrison than 15 pound helm to 20 pound helm would be head of X pounds plus a 15 pound helm compared to head of same x pounds plus a twenty pound helm.  

Angle of impact or how much of the blow "sticks" is far more important.  The trick to the bell and hammer stregnth test at the carnival is to hit square.  Hit it sqaure and you ring the bell, even one handed.

Nicodemus (who teaches physics mundanely)