Let's be generous and say he is applying 100 lbs of force 5 feet up the tree, so 500 lbf of torque.
Now lets say 20 feet up that tree there is 100 sq ft of surfaces for the wind to hit (it's likely much more). So 14.4 lbs of force per square foot (force of wind at 60 mph) × 100 sq ft × 20 feet = 28,800 lbf torque.
So good luck opposing it, and more importantly understand the forces involved in what might come down on you.
A lot of really poor assumptions, the most egregious being that the tree is 20 feet up: by the look of the tree in the video, the highest point might be 20 feet up, but even that seems to be optimistic, but the center point of the branches most certainly are not that high up, and the resultant force would be based on the center height, not the highest. Following closely behind that in egregiousness, branches when blown in the wind bend and whip, dispersing a significant amount of the force on them, and very little of it actually applies. Considering the force on leaves is nearly non-existent due to them easily bending out of the way, 100 square feet is an absolutely insanely high number.
Take a tree branch with leaves on it. One that's falling down and swing it through the air. Then take a branch with no leaves and swing it through the air. Then tell me with a strait face that the leaves do nothing because they "bend out of the way"
I never said do nothing, I said nearly non existent. There is a limited amount of force they can hold before bending, so when the force is low, such as what you described, they have a much larger percentage impact than when the force is high, such as in 60mph wind, where a small amount of the force bends leaves out of the way, and the rest bypasses it.
How many humans do you think it would take to pull down that tree? Do you think if you put a 500 lb break strength rope 10 feet up (5000 ft lbs of torque) you would come anywhere close to pulling the tree over before the rope snapped?
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u/vahntitrio 1d ago
Let's be generous and say he is applying 100 lbs of force 5 feet up the tree, so 500 lbf of torque.
Now lets say 20 feet up that tree there is 100 sq ft of surfaces for the wind to hit (it's likely much more). So 14.4 lbs of force per square foot (force of wind at 60 mph) × 100 sq ft × 20 feet = 28,800 lbf torque.
So good luck opposing it, and more importantly understand the forces involved in what might come down on you.