Why cant you pick up a chair you’re sitting/standing in?
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You can pick up a chair you are sitting in. In space you just lose some mass in the opposite direction that you wish to move the chair. And both you and the chair will start to move.
But on a celestial body like earth, you are being pulled towards it by gravity towards its Center so you would need to apply force in the opposite direction to lift off. We usually would use rockets to do this and push yourself in the opposite direction enough to lift off from the surface
If you pull up on the chair with your hands, the force will transfer through your body and make your butt push down on the chair just as hard. So, the chair doesn’t go anywhere.
When you try to pull up on the chair, your body pushes against the chair with the same amount of force. So let’s say you try lifting the chair with 100 lbs of force: then your body will push down on the chair with 100 lbs of force in addition to your weight that was previously pushing on it, cancelling out the force you’re using to try to lift it up.
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