Can a penny dropped from the top of a building turn into a ruthless killing machine? Just ask Warren Finlay, '83 BSc(ElecE), '84 MSc, and Jason Carey. The two professors in the Department of Mechanical Engineering have explained the science behind this and more than a dozen other myths and urban legends in a new book Ice Bullets & Killer Pennies: 14 Myths Get the Scientific Shakedown.
Think of it as a literary re-imagining of the popular television show MythBusters, debunking myths with simple explanations-and a few advanced mathematical formulas. The myths Finlay and Carey tackle range from the simple (does water spin in a specific direction based on the equator's position?) to the bizarre: can a car drive upside down on the ceiling of a tunnel?
"It challenges people to look beyond what they currently know," says Carey, of their book. "We added humour and simplistic concepts to give a general understanding of what's going on. Most people are more interested not only in how you get there, but the end product."
Finlay and Carey came up with the idea for the book after they began teaching a course "Mechanical Engineering 415: Busting Myths with Analysis," in 2009. Pinpointing which myths to debunk was a challenge, Carey admits, but the duo ultimately settled on those they felt were the most interesting and easiest to explain to a non-academic audience.
"It was an issue as to whether we could explain the myth at a level that would be understandable," Finlay said. "Some of the myths, the analysis and what's needed to understand what's going on are a little too complicated to bring down to a level that the average person would be able to follow."
"We don't try to explain everything," Carey adds. "We really try to say, 'Put yourself in this situation and see how much you understand of the natural phenomena and then try to link it.' And people won't always understand it, and I think that's OK.&rdquo
But the questions remains: do killer pennies exist?
"You'll have to read the book," Finlay says with a laugh. "But I'm still alive."
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