Interstate ho(e)

[sigma7]

I love it when e-mails my sister forwards to me get Snopesed. This time, though, she was actually right.

A hoe weighing 8 tons is on top of a flatbed trailer and heading east on Interstate 70 near Hays, Kansas. The extended shovel arm is made of hardened refined steel and the approaching overpass is made of commercial-grade concrete, reinforced with 1 1/2 inch steel rebar spaced at 6 inch intervals in a criss-cross pattern layered at 1 foot vertical spacing.

Solve: When the shovel arm hits the overpass, how fast do you have to be going to slice the bridge in half? (Assume no effect for headwind and no braking by the driver.)

Extra Credit: Solve for the time and distance required for the entire rig to come to a complete stop after hitting the overpass at the speed calculated above.

Comments

[bishop282.livejournal.com]

I have Snopes in my RSS reader and noticed this yesterday. I sent the Snopes link to my FHSU alumni brothers and one of them sent back an e-mail his friends had sent to him. It had some different pictures than the ones at Snopes. This one shows the other end of the bridge and it appears that the bucket hit front. Maybe it caught and threw the boom up through the bridge.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v702/bishop282/HallStreetI-70Bridge007.jpg)