eli5 how does jumping before an elevator hits the ground not save your life?
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Velocity is relative. When you are falling in an elevator lets you are essentially in free fall. This means depending on the height you can reach terminal velocity of 120 mph. Realistically the elevator is going to have some mechanical resistance on the way down as well as having a different terminal velocity based on its air resistance, but that doesn’t matter for this explanation. You are falling a 120 Mph. When you jump you are pushing away from the elevator at 4 mph max. This means that you are now going to hit the ground 116 mph. From your perspective the elevator you are moving away from the elevator, but from the grounds perspective you are both hurdling towards them at basically the same speed. In order to save yourself by jumping you would have to jump with enough force to completely nullify **all** of the speed that you have gained while failing.
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