Eli5: How come we don’t feel the millions of pounds of air coming down above us? And why aren’t we so much stronger without it?

225 views

Eli5: How come we don’t feel the millions of pounds of air coming down above us? And why aren’t we so much stronger without it?

In: 0

5 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

There isn’t that much air above you.

from the ground up there is about 1 kilogram of air about every square centimeter.

Or about 1 hectopascal since a pascal is a newton per square meter and a newton is a kg accelerated at 1m/s² (about a tenth of earths gravity).

All that math aside the point is that depending on your cross section there are not millions of pounds above you, just dozens of pounds.

You are used to that and don’t really feel it.

In situations where you don’t feel the air pressure, this is usually overshadowed by other things like lack of oxygen or gravity.

You are viewing 1 out of 5 answers, click here to view all answers.