The distance they jump/the speed at which they fall seems like it would be impossible to land without falling flat on your face. There is obviously some cool physics going on, but please.
In: Mathematics
To try and actually ELI5:
Ski jumps arent about who can jump the highest. If you watch, you’ll notice they stay just a little bit off the ground as they jump the whole way down!
Think about this : When you jump on flat ground, you go up and down, and stay where you landed. If you jump onto a slide, you’ll go down, but you’ll also go OUT toward the end of the slide. It makes you slide diagonally rather than straight down.
Put these together – not being very high off the ground and landing on a slide makes the fall damage very small.
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