In the November Scientific American on p. 28, Thomas Samaras is referenced as claiming
that a person 20% taller than another, in falling over will hit the ground with 210% more
kinetic energy than the shorter person.
Samaras is supposed to have calculated this result in a paper recently published in Acta
Pediatrica.
To get that result, it would have to be quite a bit different than energy conservation, I
would say.
--
Mike
Mike Moloney, Dept of Physics & Applied Optics, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology