Need evidence that human beings are weird? How about crushing a series of helmet-wearing cabbages with a hydraulic press? Better yet, how about a YouTube channel entirely dedicated to crushing stuff with a hydraulic press?
You Should Always Have Options:
Finnish couple Lauri and Anni Vuohensilta created the Hydraulic Press Channel because they wanted to see what would happen to stuff when it was under thousands of kilograms of pressure. Apparently a whole bunch of people want to see stuff crushed in a press because now, four years later, the channel has 2.2 million subscribers. Wild. One of their latest videos, where they crush a bunch of different helmets, garnered 7.6 million views and counting in just 11 days!
In the featured video, the couple compares types and qualities of helmets—bicycle, ballistic, and motorcycle—to see how they hold up under pressure. Lots of pressure. It’s a lot like so many of the explosive episodes of Myth Busters or the agonizing and hilarious Beavis and Butthead discovering the incredible powers of the table saw in their woodshop. Somewhat silly and yet so mesmerizing. When will it finally cave? Will it explode? Which one is better? What would that much weight feel like, anyway?
Turns out, if you’re planning to park a car on your head, your best bet is to wear a ballistic helmet, although no guarantee that the rest of your body could withstand the pressure. The cabbage certainly struggled. It also turns out that bicycle helmets can take on quite a lot of weight before collapsing.
Overall, it’s really more about the thrill of watching everyday objects try to hold out against aggressive amounts of force. In the case of this helmet stress-test, the findings aren’t helpful. Helmets are supposed to absorb impact to the point of breaking. Anything they can do to soften the blow. So unless the car that hits us also rolls over our helmets, this is more entertaining than informative. In fact, I gotta go. I want to see the one where they try to fold the piece of paper in half more than seven times.
Source: Hydraulic Press Channel