How is it that bugs take no fall damage?
In: Physics
It’s like the saying goes. The fall doesn’t kill you, it’s the sudden stop.
Newton: an object at rest tends will stay at rest unless acted on by an outside force. And object in motion will stay in motion unless acted on by an outside force. This is momentum.
The faster you fall the more momentum your body gains. When the force of that momentum exceeds the strength of you bones/structural integrity of your body, when you stop your body’s own momentum will crush it against the ground. Because the momentum is greater than the strength of the body, the body breaks.
Bugs have very little mass and relatively large surface area to that mass so they have a very low terminal velocity (maximum speed they can fall/point at which the force of air resistance which increases as speed through the air does, matches the force of gravity so you stop accelerating). Their mass and terminal velocity is so low that they don’t have enough momentum at their maximum falling speed to exceed the strength of and break their body.
So no matter how far they fall they never get hurt on landing.
Lease cutter ants use this to their advantage by purposely jumping out of trees when they want to get down because they can’t be damaged from the fall.
Latest Answers