See a comparative study of four Olympic hurling objects - the hammer, the javelin, the discus, and the shot put

Let's have a face-off of the most burly Olympic hurling events-- the hammer throw, javelin, discus, and shot put.

The hammer and shot each weigh 16 pounds, which is two or three babies' worth of iron, either swung around at the end of a chain or hurled with brute strength. The discus, as you may know, is basically a four-pound Frisbee. And the javelin is, well, a javelin.

Now, Olympians can toss all of these things pretty far. I mean, in the 1980s, they had to redesign the javelin to make it harder to throw, because athletes were starting to lob it farther than the entire length of a stadium and into the stands.

It still has the longest world record, but the javelin is considerably lighter than the other implements. So which one-- the hammer, javelin, discus or shot-- gets thrown with the most energy? Ignoring trivial things like air resistance and lift, we can figure out roughly how much energy each implement has just by knowing its weight and how far it gets thrown.

So in fourth place, a javelin thrown the world-record distance has enough energy to power a 50-watt light bulb for eight seconds. In third is the discus, powering a light bulb for 15 seconds. And squeezing into second with one more second of illumination is the shot.

But the gold medal clearly goes to the hammer throw, hurled with enough energy to power a light bulb for a full minute. Now that's hammering the competition.