I always remember someone telling me when I was a kid that if you threw a coin off the top of the Empire State Building and it hit someone that they would end up dying, but I don’t think I’ve ever questioned the logic behind that in the time since. It sounds like it might actually happen doesn’t it?

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Anyway, now thanks to YouTuber Veritasium and ‘original MythBuster‘ Adam Savage we now know the truth. Well, sort of.

For some reason the guys decided that they wouldn’t actually go up a skyscraper to drop the coins off, but instead launch them out of a helicopter hovering at the same height as a really tall building. Veritsaium is standing directly underneath with a hard hat on and well, you can see the results in the video below:

A typical coin weighs around 2.5 grams which is half to a quarter of the weight of a bullet (5-10 grams).

If you ignore air resistance, a penny dropped from the Empire State building, which is 443 metres to the very top, would accelerate to over 300km/h by the time it hits the ground.

That’s around half as fast as a typical bullet.

They feel like tiny little bullets. I feel like I’m going to be bruised after this.

The coins hurt a little but not a lot.

It certainly wasn’t fatal.

Well there you have it, like most things I was told when I was a kid this was complete and utter rubbish. I suppose it’s kind of dumb to believe that, but you could have hurt someone a bit if you had thrown a coin off the skyscraper so probably a good story to put out there. You would always have one maniac kid who wanted to try and do stuff like that – best to shut him up straight away.

For more of the same, check out when Adam Savage was accused of raping his sister repeatedly when they were both young children. What?