Is a 50 mph-50 mph Collision the Same as a 100–0 mph Collision?

Rhett Allain
9 min readMay 19, 2023

A long time ago there was a MythBusters episode that looked at head to head crashing cars. Suppose you have two equal mass cars both traveling with a speed of 50 mph and they crash (don’t worry, no one is in the cars). Would this cause the same amount of damage as a car going 100 mph and crashing into a wall? It’s time for some physics.

Basic 1D Collision

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Rhett Allain

Physics faculty, science blogger of all things geek. Technical Consultant for CBS MacGyver and MythBusters. WIRED blogger.