Eli5: What would happen if I pour water out of a bottle in a falling Elevator?

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What would happen? Would the water hit the roof of the elevator since the elevator is falling rapidly?

I thought about it when I put Eye Drops in an elevator.

In: Physics

15 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Nah, it hit the floor. The elevator would need to be in free fall (or close to) for it to hit the roof.

You’re just not moving fast enough.

Anonymous 0 Comments

You would have an elevator with a wet floor. Careful not to slip.

Elevators don’t descend anywhere near fast enough to counteract the force of gravity. Moving that fast would be dangerous to the unrestrained human occupants. If you aren’t experiencing weightlessness or hitting the roof in an elevator water wouldn’t either, these things are both the same in terms of the physics involved.

Anonymous 0 Comments

If you hit the ceiling then the water will hit the ceiling. If the elevator is free falling then you might feel weightless so you and the water wouldn’t move. In normal operation the water goes to the floor like you.

Anonymous 0 Comments

If the elevator were falling for long enough to reach terminal velocity would the water not just stay in the bottle or at most trickle out? That would make sense to me anyway.

Anonymous 0 Comments

If the elevator were supported or falling through air (which would slow down the elevator), it would still hit the ground.

If it was in free fall and there was no air to slow it down, the water would neither hit the ceiling or the wall it would float. [Exactly like this.](https://youtu.be/o8TssbmY-GM?t=101)
The International Space Station is constantly falling. It’s just moving so quickly to the side that it keeps missing the earth. This is called an orbit.

The only way it hits the ceiling is if something like a rocket is pushing it downwards faster than gravity.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Several problems

Elevators fall upward. If everything were to fail it would go up because the counterbalance weighs more than the car up to the max weight.

Elevators have brakes

If they move past the speed the motor can handle, the brakes engage

Elevators are on a track that has friction greater than 0. Even if all the aforementioned things failed and the cable somehow was severed, the elevator wouldn’t be able to reach freefall speed, so the water would always be able to hit the bottom of the car.

Anonymous 0 Comments

If the elevator is rapidly accelerating downwards, the water might hit the roof, but if the elevator is moving at a consistent rate (or not accelerating that much) the water would act like you were standing stationary.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Once the elevator is moving, the water will pour like normal because gravity is going to affect it at the same rate regardless of how fast it is already moving.

Anonymous 0 Comments

This thread has a lot of overcomplicated answers that make a bunch of assumptions.

If you are in a free falling elevator and you disregard friction, you are accelerating at 9.8m/s^2, which is gravitational acceleration (1g). The water in this case would float in mid air as though you’re in space. This is the same principle as zero-g airplane flights, which enter a free fall to simulate a zero-g environment for a short period.

The reason this happens is because when you’re holding your bottle of water in the free falling elevator, it’s already accelerating downward at 1g. Pouring it out doesn’t make it fall any faster. It will continue accellerating at 1g, but it will be outside the bottle. If the elevator comes to a stop, the water will fall to the floor.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I think the elevator part is confusing people. If you jump out of a plane and spill some water at the same time, you and the water will fall at roughly the same speed