How many 5-year-olds could you fight?
Posted by Nathaniel.
I came across a discussion on the web the other week. The question is, within a set of rules, how many 5-year-olds could you defend yourself against?
The rules:
1) You’re in a space the size of a basketball court and you’re not allowed to touch the walls or use them for defense.
2) The kids are a 50-50 mix of girls and boys and they’re all healthy and have strength typical for their age.
3) The kids get a day of training beforehand on issues to help them beat you.
4) You get one hour of training beforehand.
5) No weapons are allowed and everyone who needs one gets a cup.
6) They’re all motivated and won’t be scared by their comrades going down.
You lose if you get knocked down and can’t get back up. They lose when you disable all of them.
So, how many kids could you take on at once?
May 9th, 2006 at 4:50 pm Using
I would guess it would depend on if they ended up having any organized strategy. If they did not, pick up one of the first ones to come at you and there you have a weapon. (Am I a bad person for that sentance?) At which point it all comes down at the rate at which they come at you.
If one assumes an average weight of a 5 year old to be about 40 lb. then I’d guess-timate that I could get a swing every second or two. Lets go with two, I’m not all that fit. Ignoring fatigue for the moment, that means at a constant rate and with the first child as my primary means of defense, then I could withstand a flow of one 5 year old attacking every two seconds, which seems reasonable considering their short and slow. Now the problems come in when fatigue is taken into account and also when the first blow doesn’t kock them away far enough or out. If my life was on the line I might be able to keep going at such a pace for maybe half an hour at the most, including the occasional kick and punch to change things up a bit. And lets give a success rate of 50% for each swing, so then we have 2 swings per child on the average. So one 5 year old ever four seconds will be taken down. So: 30 min / (4 seconds /60(sec/min)) = 450. I’ll chop off 150 due to errors, both in the math and in my own defense. So about 300 with the given parameters and constant flow.
Now I do feel evil.
May 9th, 2006 at 6:11 pm Using
No disrespect to James intended, but I used to work at a daycare center, where often it was that my duties consisted of keeping tabs on a couple of dozen (or more) kids at once. This was usually in an outdoors on-the-playground type of situation, but sometimes it might be in a swimming pool or even inside.
Anyways, my point is that I think the ability of 5-year-old kids to wear you out scales at a rate somewhat faster than linear, maybe like to the 3/2 power or something. In that case, even being super-evil and using the first munchkin as a club, you run out of 5-year-old deflection capability much more quickly. (My math yields something like 45, instead of James’s 300, using the same parameters he described.)
I think 45 is a far more realistic number, and would, based on my own experiences, go so far as to say that the real number is significantly smaller, probably like 25 or so, since I know that they can and will team up and strategize in some weird predator-prey game-theory sort of way.
I propose an experiment to test our model:
(1) Kidnap Paris Hilton or some other equally vacuous pop-culture celebrity person. (Bonus points for Scientologists!)
(2) Assemble and train assault force of 5-year-olds.
(3) Lock them all in appropriately-sized gymnasium, rigged with one of those invisible fence things around the wall and the shock collar on celebrity test subject (read: victim) to prevent the illegal use of the walls, as Nathaniel described it.
(4) Observe the patterns that emerge, as captured by the pre-installed video cameras.
(5) Record and analyze data with great care.
(6) Run multiple trials with new test subjects to remove error for differing physical statures, backgrounds, professions, etc.
I’m not sure if this would tell us anything, but it would surely help put bothersome public figures in their place. It’s that whole, “Ha! You got beat up by a bunch of 5-year-olds!” thing, you know?
The above dark humor was brought to you by Tim’s addled mind, which is currently too busy worrying about writing his thesis proposal to be it’s usual plucky self.
May 9th, 2006 at 6:16 pm Using
I’m not so sure that a 2-second swing time is possible. I’m guessing the cycle is more like 10 seconds and a lot of little munchkins could grab you in 10 seconds.
Anyway, I’m sort of guessing that my number is between 15 and 20. Chris thinks his limit is around 10, but he’s too anti-blog to say it himself.
May 9th, 2006 at 10:26 pm Using
I think the key here is the mentality of the 5-year-olds… are they organized and controlled by an over-mind? or just all attacking individually?
Either way, I’m putting my number around 25. No calculation, just thinking of what a group of little ones is like. (Actually, I have a feeling that with a cup, I might be able to take out a few more than that, but I don’t want to really think about this subject too much, it’s starting to disturb me.)
One final thought – I agree that a 2-second swing time is unreasonable. Bluntly put, of those in the department, Tim and/or I are probably the two most-qualified to use one kid as a shield/club (I’m stronger, he’s got a better center of mass) and I’d be hard-pressed to swing with any regularity after the first 20 seconds or so.
May 10th, 2006 at 12:49 am Using
Yeah, the big question like MIke asked is if they are controlled and/or really driven mad to attack. If they were just normal kids I think all you’d have to take out is about 5 then the rest would be discouraged.
If they were driven, and not likely to give up it’s a different story. I don’t want to over-estimate but I think it would not be hard to take out 30 of them. That is assuming just throwing punches, after you get tired of punching you could take out a few more with mean pressure point type of grabs an twists, you know like snapping necks, etc.
Too bad there isn’t a way to test out our estimates until some reliable androids are designed and on the market…
May 10th, 2006 at 1:40 am Using
Well, they’re not controlled by a hive mind or anything, however, they think that you’re the most evil thing in the world and will find to the last one to stop you.