We are in the middle of the funniest sporting lawsuit of all time, and it’s made even better considering it involves Gwyneth Paltrow.
If you haven’t been following along, Paltrow is being sued by 76-yea-old Terry Sanderson, who is seeking $300,000 for a skiing collision which took place in 2016. Sanderson claims that Paltrow was “out of control” on the slopes of Park City, Utah — alleging that the incident caused him to suffer physical, psychological, and emotional damage as a result.
To be clear: There is nothing funny about sustaining these types of injuries in an accident. What is funny, however, is how this is all playing out in court — including detailed artist renderings like this.
i’m not proud but i am rapt pic.twitter.com/uSEMnbHWOM — Kathryn VanArendonk (@kvanaren) March 28, 2023
Don’t worry, we have a 3D model of it too.
look
i just pic.twitter.com/RkY3LL4LMp — Kathryn VanArendonk (@kvanaren) March 28, 2023
What is it like when someone gets knocked through the air while skiing? Well, if you can imagine it might look a little something like this.
tfw you’ve been in a ski accident pic.twitter.com/YH9Lhs3vNc — Kathryn VanArendonk (@kvanaren) March 28, 2023
Sanderson claims that Paltrow stuck him with such force that he was basically de-cleated. The words he even used were “I’m flying. I’m absolutely flying.” As someone who has seen a lot of big hits while watching football and hockey this was absolutely fascinating to me.
Gwyneth Paltrow is 5’9”. The ideal weight for a person her size is 145 pounds according to the NHS is the United Kingdom. It’s generally accepted that a +/- of 10 percent is still in the healthy range, so let’s assume Paltrow is smaller than average because of the pressures of Hollywood, but still in the healthy range. We can even this out and say she’s roughly 140 pounds.
We don’t know how much Terry Sanderson weighs, or how tall he is. From the 3D animation he appears to be slightly smaller than Paltrow. Let’s say he’s 5’8” for sake of argument. Using the same NHS chart we can say that Sanderson weighed approximately 150 pounds.
Knocking over someone who is heavier is extremely easy. All that’s requires is for the force Sanderson was struck with to be over 150 pounds, which is nothing considering Paltrow was at speed. To send someone “absolutely flying,” that’s an entirely different story. We know there are four forces of flight:
Thrust: The force pushing an object forward
The force pushing an object forward Lift: The upwards force to get it off the ground
The upwards force to get it off the ground Weight: The force keeping the object on the ground
The force keeping the object on the ground Drag: The force pushing against an object, counteracting thrust
We have to assume hyperbole from Sanderson, so we need to codify what “absolutely flying” is. Rather than have him sail off into the wild blue yonder like a kite, let’s assume that he was moved ass-over-teakettle for five yards.
In this case the thrust is Paltrow hitting Sanderson. The lift can be calculated by the angle of attack on the ski slope, rather than plane wings. We know Sanderson’s weight (roughly). The drag would be negligible, so let’s keep that at a 0.
Paltrow was on a Green Circle course with a ski instructor when the incident took place. These have a slope grade of 6 to 25 degrees. We can see from the animation that they were on an intermediate part of the course, so we’ll estimate 15 degrees of slope.
I’ll be 100 percent honest. This is breaking my brain. I’m not a physicist and despite watching an entire lecture on projectile motion on an incline I have only a vague understanding of how the hell to even approach this problem. If you want to math this all out in the comments, more power to you — because you’re much smarter than I am.
Here’s what I’m fairly confident in: In order to exceed to launch a 150 pound object five feet off a 15 degree incline it would require 2,843 pounds of force. Given that Force = Mass x Acceleration we have:
If we then convert ft/s² to miles per hour we get 415. So Paltrow would have needed to be traveling over 400 miles per hour to launch Sanderson five feel through the air. Yes, this seems like an extraordinary amount — but we’re talking about two objects, rather than a football player who has been trained to deliver force in a tackle. That’s why an NFL player doesn’t need to run faster than an F1 car to de-cleat someone, but Paltrow on skis does.
I’m going to lay down. I don’t know how physicists do this for a living.
The Gwyneth Paltrow ski incident is the wildest sports lawsuit of all time
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