March and April in South Africa are littered with public holidays and we have spent way too much time binge-watching movies and series. I have a house full of boys, so inevitably, we watch a lot of action and suspense – and I am not complaining about having the Rock and Jason in my living room. I mean, South Africans have a reputation of being hospitable!
The weapon of choice in modern action movies seem to be the headbutt, and I have had the perfect headbutt explained to me in minute detail – because women in their 50s go around headbutting people. When I rolled my eyes at the instructions, I was told categorically that technique is very important – and if I do it wrong (when am I ever going to do this??), I will hurt myself. I guess no knowledge is ever wasted – so watch out next time you take the last shopping trolley.
We have all seen the headbutt – and I hope none of you has tried it – and according to Hollywood, it will play a significant part in our lives. Probably as major as we believed quicksand and fire ants would play when we were children. It is better to be prepared, so here is the math and science behind the perfect headbutt.
Let’s divide this into two sections – the actual action and the surface areas. The primary action can be explained by F = ma. F represents force – so why would the Rock and Jason hit harder than you and me? It has to do with the m and the a. M is mass – so in this instance, how much you weigh. The a for acceleration would be how fast your head is moving. The Rock and Jason train all the time, i.e. they are heavier than what we are (and muscle heavy, not pandemic weight-gain heavy), and they move their heads faster than what we would do – every little bit of change in these two elements, would change the force. This is definitely one of those ‘don’t try at home’ conversations. Just because we understand the formula behind this does not mean we know how to do this.
Headbutting is complex because after you understand the ‘butting’, you need to apply Newton’s Second Law again to understand the ‘head’. If I started the above paragraph with Newton’s Second Law of Motion, most people would stop reading because that is too ‘sciency’. Well, you understood it, so let’s apply it again. F=ma. I am getting all funny in my tummy trying to explain this on somebody’s face, so let’s move it off the body to the garden. The paving in the garden represents your forehead, and the grass represents the ‘soft’ part of your face (your nose, your cheeks, etc.). Newton’s law says that our change in velocity will be identical whether we land on concrete or grass. (Velocity is the speed that something moves in one direction.) Think about it this way: if you land on concrete, you stop faster than if you land on grass, so the acceleration on soft grass is smaller because the change in velocity occurred in a longer period of time. When landing on grass, the force must be smaller for an identical mass – smaller acceleration on grass requires a smaller force.
Now take the above and apply it to the headbutt – bigger forces mean bigger injuries. There is less force when the forehead (the pavement) hits the soft part of your face (the grass) than the other way round; hence it hurts the recipient more than the person giving the headbutt. Now take the above and apply it to the headbutt – bigger forces mean bigger injuries. There is less force when the forehead (the pavement) hits the soft part of your face (the grass) than the other way round; hence it hurts the recipient more than the person giving the headbutt. If you do try this at home and get it wrong – i.e. you accidentally go forehead to forehead – you will both experience a similar amount of pain. Effectively you would have headbutted yourself. Don’t do this. All you have done is change ‘a’ in the equation – F=ma. If you do try this at home and get it wrong – i.e. you accidentally go forehead to forehead – you will both experience a similar amount of pain. Effectively you would have headbutted yourself.
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