This is the first of a series of articles on the physics of martial arts. This first article is on the physics of breaking boards (or bricks or ice blocks). On and off in future releases of this website there will be articles on the physics of other aspects of martial arts.
In the movie The Karate Kid, Part II, Daniel LaRusso was challenged in a bar/arcade to a large monetary bet by his rival Chozen to break a large block of ice with a single hand strike. With some last minute instruction on breathing techniques by his master/mentor Mr. Miyagi, Daniel was successful in breaking the large block of ice. Is that realistic from a physics point of view? Can someone like Daniel who previously hasn’t practiced that kind of technique break a large block of ice on his first attempt? The answer is highly unlikely to impossible. Only in a movie that allows dramatic exaggeration is that possible, because it requires an extremely large force to break a large block of ice with a single hand strike.
Some Thoughts on Tibet
Tibet has been on the Western mass media quite frequently during the last few weeks. Many American and other Western politicians have also voiced very strong opinions regarding Tibet. With very few exceptions, the view expressed in the Western mass media and the Western politicians basically can be summarized with the following three viewpoints:
In this article I would like to let history to assess the validity of these three viewpoints.
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