Would breaking a zombie neck kill it? If so, why? If not, why?
I think it depends on what you have available to you. If you only have your hands then going to the head would probably not be the smartest. The human forehead is one of the hardest bones in our body. Someone who is well trained can crack it with a well thrown elbow. personally I would go to one of three places to protect my self against a zombie. The first attempt would be to destroy the brain by placing my hand behind its head and using my palm to drive it's nose into its brain. The second would be to collapse it's windpipe. And the third would be the groin. Who knows maybe this would be enough pain to un-deaden him some. But usual my first response to someone attacking me is a leg sweep. I would probably just do the same thing and kick the thing until it stops moving or I can run away.
If you destroy nearly anythings brain, it will cease to function or be paralyzed. If you remove the arms and legs of a zombie, it will not be moving around or scratch, but it can still bite. If you cut somethings head off, most times, it will cease to function. We don't know if this is true for a zombie or not yet. If you cut a person in half, they will die on most occasions. (By in half, for your smart alecs out there, I mean from mid torso horizontally and not a vertical cut) If you cut a zombie in half, it may keep coming by using its arms to crawl and is still just as dangerous. If you cut the head off, it may still function and be able to bite, thus the bodily threat may be no more but the head is not dead. Therefore the zombie is not dead. The zombie being DEAD would mean that all parts of the zombie cease to function. This means that we will probably immobilize more zombies than we kill. For a zombie, this would be the same reason that a neck break may not work because there is no guarantee that disconnecting the spine from the brain will kill the zombie. It may immobilize it, but the threat of the head may still exist. If the head still functions, and can bite, then the zombie IS NOT DEAD (or re-dead as the case may be). If you destroy the brain, however, the brain's function stops or is impaired severely. The only way to be sure, in my opinion, is to destroy the brain. I will not argue that other techniques may work (Sanchez's idea of shooting the damn thing till it doesn't move anymore), I will however argue about the definition of a zombie being DEAD.
"Merely having an open mind is nothing; the object of opening a mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid." G.K. Chesterton
I would like to adress something thats kind of a pet pieve, so please bare with me. With the new site allowing us to restart somewhat from the old I would love to see more fact and less mythos involved in discussions of killing dead, undead, infected or other types of humans or vertebrates.
To drive a piece of cartilage through a piece of bone, one needs to generate alot more force than is possible with a bare handed strike to the nose, on top of that the angle of impact does not force the nose up into the brain, it forces a large chunk of cartilage, tissue and muscle into the sinus cavity which is large. The myth of the killer nose strikes comes from 2 sources. Mummies and broken c1 to c3 vertebrae which are often broken by a fast movement of the head straight back, or by impact straight down on the skull. Although no empirical evidence has ever been shown to support the myth of the killer nose strike, it prevalent in the martial arts world. An upward strike to the chin causes more energy transference, and has been proven to crack the c1-c3 vertebrae with enough speed force or leverage.
Severing, interrupting, or causing the spine not to function in any is a sure method for killing any liver vertebrates. Its fast its easy and its humane. Now if zombies or undead what have you manage to defy all physiology, chemistry and or commonly know reality, then we have a problem. Since dead tissue has been brought to function, then the concept of a zombie is not outside reality. A vertebrate of any kind functioning with out an in tact spine is simply not reality.
In summation, break their neck if you know how. Longer you spend fighting them the more likely you are to have problems.