Is’t better to break an empty or full beer bottle on someone’s head?

What is going on? Am I bleeding? Whoever has been in a bar fight would remember the things that went through their head. Anyway, empty bottles broke at 40 J impact energy, and full bottles broke at 30 J. These breaking energies surpass the minimum fracture-threshold of the human neurocranium. Therefore, whether empty or full beer bottles, it is not advisable to use them.

Although we can certainly say that the science of what kind of beer bottles to use to hit someone’s head was not one of them, these are probably the most common things. Beer bottles are often used in physical disputes. If the bottles break, they can lead to sharp trauma. However, if the bottles remain intact, they can cause blunt injuries, according to a study.

The scientists of the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, in 2009, went further and carried out that same study, but it was worth answering. “Are full or empty beer bottles sturdier, and does their fracture-threshold suffice to break the human skull?”

To investigate whether full or empty standard half-liter beer bottles are firmer and if the necessary “fracture energy exceeds the human skull’s minimum fracture threshold”, they tested the “fracture properties of such beer bottles in a drop-tower”.

They took full and empty half-liter beer bottles and performed a stress test on them in a licorice tower, which tells us that they were really prepared for this. After the test, they found out, empty beer bottles broke at 40 J energy and full ones at 30 J energy.

“Full bottles vomit at 30 J impact energy, empty bottles at 40 J. These fracture energies exceed the minimum fracture limit of the human neurocranium.” Therefore, beer bottles can break the human skull and serve as dangerous instruments in a physical dispute.

If that seems to be a significant difference, it is not. Both are enough to fracture the human skull, something that bar fighters have known since bars (or beer bottles) were invented.