How deadly is Donkey Kong's punch? It's one of his most iconic moves in Smash Bros.

And now he's back in Donkey Kong Bonanza and he is stronger than ever, destroying anything that gets in his path.

But how strong is it really? Today, we're going to find out.

Hello, internet. Welcome to Game Theory, the show that smashes the environment with science, although not sure

my world-smashing brain would put up much of a fight against the World Smashing Brawn

that is Donkey Kong.

He may not have always been known for talking with his fists, mostly just jumping on his

enemies like his sworn rival Mario,

but ever since his appearance in 1999 Super Smash Brothers, ZK's charge punch has remained a powerful

force to be reckoned with, and now, with his triumphant return in Donkey Kong Bonanza,

we finally get to use the full power of his fists, destroying the environment like you're a villain

in an 80s cartoon. The pure destructive force of D.K.'s fist seems overwhelming, but the question is,

is it? You see, Nintendo has a habit of, let's say, skirting realism for the sake of,

quote, unquote, fun. But you know what I find fun? Physics. Especially the physics of an 800 pound gorilla with weird workplace relationships.

So, I figured it was time for me to sit down and do the math for myself to figure out how powerful is DK's smash.

You might think this is going to require us to use one of our favorite formulas on this channel.

FMA. Force equals mass times acceleration. But actually, we need something a little beefier.

See, FMA focuses on an object in constant acceleration.

However, we're focusing on a singular punch, which doesn't have a continuous motion.

It stops once it makes impact.

And the force applied during that impact is what we're after. Luckily, there is a formula for that too. And it looks like this. F equals delta p over delta t. Basically, the change in momentum divided by the change in time. And to figure out that first bit, that change in momentum, we need two things. The mass and the velocity at the time of impact. That's a lot of

small pieces to find. So, we'd best make like Donkey Kong and start collecting them.

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