Dropping a penny hundreds of meters from the top of a skyscraper is one of the age old scenarios that nobody ever seems to actually know the answer to, yet you can't help but wonder how lethal the process would actually be if someone was unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end.
There are plenty of questions that we naturally have as human beings and often these are best answered and explained through the wonders of simulation.
If you've ever wondered how drugs like Ozempic actually cause weight loss, or what happens to your brain or body when you die then simulations are able to show you the answer in great (and often horrifying detail), and you'd be surprised quite how much is covered by some of the more popular creators on social media.
Arguably the king of simulations on YouTube though is Zack D. Films, and while he usually delves into grotesque visions of the human body, this time he answers a hypothesis that's likely been on everyone's mind at some point in their life.
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Titled 'Dropping A Penny From A Skyscraper', this new simulation details quite how lethal a falling coin would be if you let it slip from the several-hundred-meter heights of a ultra-tall building.
For most people they'll imagine the coin rapidly gaining speed - perhaps even bursting into flames as if falls through the air - and then slicing through an unwitting victim unlucky enough to be between the penny and it's landing spot on the ground.
In reality though it's far less dangerous, and this particular video explains exactly why.
"If you dropped a penny from the top of a skyscraper, it actually wouldn't kill someone if it struck them," the simulation begins to explain. "This is because pennies are flat, causing them to have a slower terminal velocity."
If you look at anything designed to be fast when falling you'll notice that it has as little resistance and volume as possible in order to fall through the air without any restriction.
As a penny is flat and wide - and would also likely spin as it was falling - this introduces extreme air resistance that slows the penny down, significantly reducing how much damage it could actually do upon impact.
Now you might be wondering - what would happen then if a penny was ergonomically optimized to fall through the air as seamlessly as possible? Thankfully Zack D. Films also has us covered on that front.
"If you reshaped the coin into a sharp, needle-like object, it would pierce the air more efficiently, which would increase its speed as it fell," he explains.
The result in actuality though isn't that much more dangerous though, as "once it reached it might hit with enough force to cause injury, but it still probably wouldn't kill them because it's not heavy enough."
That should then foil any plans to drop needles off the top of a building, as while it could very well pierce the skin of someone from that height, it's still not at all heavy enough - nor is it dropped with enough force - to go through anyone or do any real damage.