Question

How can a karate player break a pile of tiles or a slab of ice with a single blow of his hand?

Answer 1

Karate player breaks a pile of tiles or a slab of ice with a single blow of his hand because he strikes the pile with his hand moving very fast. In doing so, the entire momentum of his hand becomes zero in a very short span of time. As the force is basically the rate of change of momentum. Therefore, by doing the fast action of his hand, he is able to apply a stronger force on the pile and hence the pile of tiles or slab of ice breaks by a single blow of his hand.