blunt-science

Mythbusters Physics: Relative Velocity

The Mythbusters tested what would happen if a ball was shot at 60 mph off the back of a truck travelling at 60 mph to see what would happen.

It became a perfect example of the relative nature of physics - showing that velocity can vectorially add together. 60 mph in one direction cancels the 60 mph in the other, meaning a net velocity of zero.

surrenderless

thanks, you discovered vectors. Fuck me sideways this is dumb

meco-official

Yup, everyone has the same level of knowledge as you. There’s no one to learn anything from this.

derthmanter

Just to add, before the Mythbusters did this it was purely a thought experiment and had never been empirically tested at that point. So you are seeing in those two gifs the first actually test of that hypothesis since it had been proposed back in Newtons time.