A human falling down from three times their own height (six metres or so) would be horribly injured, while bugs seem to just walk on. How does this work? Shouldn’t they be falling at a similar speed, due to gravity?
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It’s because of terminal velocity, that is the point where acceleration from gravity balances out with resistance from wind. The average terminal velocity for an insect is about 2m/s, the terminal velocity for a human is about 60m/s. If both you and an insect jumped from the Empire State Building at the same time you’d reach earth a lot faster than the insect would, but if the experiment happened in a vacuum you’d be able to lock eyes with the insect and would both hit the ground at the same time and at the same speed… a blistering 86m/s or 192mph
Additionally things are just relatively stronger the smaller they are. Ants can lift 50 times their body weight, with minimal training an average child can dead hang for 2 minutes something adults struggle with, elephants can’t jump.
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