What is a g-force, and why is it so important to my case?
The term “g-force” is not really a force, but in fact is a way of describing the rate of acceleration or deceleration. It takes into account the weight of the object and how fast it was accelerated or decelerated to a certain speed. Without a g-force, we would all float off into space. There is 1 g holding us all here on earth. On the moon the g-force is about half, and we all saw the astronauts taking long leaping steps and jumps when they were there. At a recent air show, the announcer described a particular turn one jet was doing as putting the pilot through a 6 g turn. In other words, if the pilot normally weighed 200 pounds, he now felt like he weighed 1,200 pounds (6 times the weight). While the pilot’s g-force was spread out over a longer period of time, the g-forces felt in an automobile accident occurs in about the blink of an eye (100 to 150 milliseconds). In fact the peak force is felt in about half of that time. These forces can be calculated using Newton’s Second Law of Mo
