How effective is the party cannon?

[Pinkie Pony 42]

Hiya everypony!! So I was thinking about something. Soo pinkie pie uses her party cannon to decorate things super duper fast but she has also been known to use it as a weapon so..... How effective would a party cannon actually be as a weapon. Could shooting confetti in somepony's  face actually hurt them? Lets discuss the physics of the party cannon.   

 

Standard Funcionality of the party cannon:

 

Party cannon used as a weapon: (Skip to 1:40)

 

Edited January 31, 2015 by Dazzling Dusk

[Dawning Demon 950]

The Party Cannon is super effective...IF YOU WANNA HAVE A FUN! - In Pinkie's voice...

[PROJECT: Simon 3,955]

Yeah.. it can hurt someone. I wish I had one. 

[Fractured 2,684]

It was able to put down changelings. Said changelings were capable of kamikaze style attacks that put foot deep craters into solid ground, so at least enough to destroy a wall or two, with some seriously impressive range. It was also(in the comics) capable of firing super duper bubblegum, which restrained a group of changelings at the same time. I don't think we've ever seen one used on a pony, though, so we can't really say much beyond that.

[speedyblupi 76]

Ok.

 

From the top video we can see that the confetti moves about 1 metre in about 1/5 of a second.

 

The tablecloth and hat aren't shown leaving the cannon, so I would assume they're further down inside it, and therefore move to the table in about 1/10 of a second. The table is about 5 metres away.

 

The force required to accelerate them (approximately 1 kg) to 50 m/s in 1/10 of a second (100 m/s/s) is 500N, so being hit by them would have effectively the same effect as if you had a 50kg mass lowered onto you. The area this is distributed across would be equal to the cross section of the muzzle at point blanc range. Pinkie is about 50cm high in the stance she's in (based on apple size and the height of Twilight relative to the element of magic in Equestria Girls), and she's three times the height of the diameter of the muzzle so the diameter is about 17cm (about that of a human face), giving an area of 227 cm squared, which is about equivalent to a 15cmx15cm square. So lie down with a 50kg weight on your face to get approximately the same effect as a party cannon shot in the face - it would be very uncomfortable, and probably quite painful, but it wouldn't cause any significant damage (it might break your nose, depending on how hard it is - if it was a tablecloth it probably wouldn't).

 

(I could do some differentiation to get a more accurate result for the force - it would actually be about double the calculated value, but I can't be arsed to make it THAT complicated)

 

SCIENCE FTW!

Edited February 1, 2015 by speedyblupi

[Pinkie Pony 42]

Yay! Science! Well that was a pretty good explanation!

[sweetolebob18 728]

I go w Speedyblup on this.  Of course, it also depends on what is loaded into it.  Something like silverware would be a lot more effective.

[Jeric 46,854]

@Pinkie Pony, you pose a really interesting question and @speedyblupi did a great job at applying real world physics to this experiment. Since this is Pony related, yet has an IRL focus all the same, we decided that Sugarcube Corner would be a good fit for it. Normally show items go in Show Discussion, but that concept of real life application really added a nice wrinkle. Good job.

[NOT ACTIVE 1,266]

i always say that there isn't a weapon that hurts someone, but the people that uses it, but if we are really speaking about the power it would have, i'd say that it could hurt somepony if hit directly in the head or torso  -_-

(i hate to speak with technical terms, really)