Curious as to what would happen if I perfectly time it. Would I be safe? Lets say the building is 4 stories high
In: Physics
That really depends on how the building collapses. If the floor below you breaks apart and you slip between the cracks as the building comes down, you’re pretty much screwed. If the building collapses [from the bottom up](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou_TCoNo9ZA), however, then you’ve got a chance.
Think about how fast you’d fall from 4 stories. To offset this, you’d need to be able to jump, not only 4 stories high, but at the same speed that gravity is making it drop.
That being said… I’m certain there’s plenty of people who have survived 4story falls. so you might live, but it would have nothing to do with you ‘jumping’ right before it hit the ground.
If you’re standing on the bridge and it begins to fall you won’t be able to squat down to the bridge for something to spring off of…that’s your first problem. Your legs will just lift off the surface roughly as much as your head goes down.
You can jump up pretty slowly. You will be falling down VERY rapidly. So you’ll take a little bit off a very high speed. Not nearly enough to make any difference whatsoever.
The key here is to time your jump so that you hit the ground with minimal velocity. So you’ll want to jump exactly…
If you jump *out* and not *up* you would have a higher chance of surviving. You still likely wouldn’t, but would have a better shot. Here’s how:
Don’t think about a building. Think about a 16′ ladder in a warehouse. You’re having to get stuff off a shelf 14′ feet above you. That’s a whole floor.
A fall from there onto concrete can technically break some bones. So you tell the guy holding the base of the ladder (we work safe at the Imaginary Warehouse) to remember to “shove you real hard” if you fall. Why would you say that?
Because the force of being shoved helps redirect some of the momentum from your fall. Concrete doesn’t give, so we don’t want you splat — which is exactly what will happen to all the energy you gained during your fall. If we shove you, you can slide along the surface, dispelling energy that way. This is a way to reduce the odds of severe injury.
Back to your building.
You’re on the roof of your four story building having a smoke break. You forgot it was demolition day, feel the explosion, and the sudden caving in of the building. You know you don’t have a lot of time (it takes about 1.7 seconds for a 4-story building to collapse), so you start sprinting to the edge.
The average non-Usain Bolt can run between 12-15mph at a full sprint. The building’s fall, assuming the rate of gravity is still 9.8 m/s^2, is about 37mph. A headfirst collision at 37 will kill you, but you can survive a skid (see: motorcycle accidents).
You have pretty good odds of survival if you’re able to, with the assistance of your sprint changing your velocity, get your fall down to 27-30mph. It will still hurt like a bitch, and you’ll probably still break something, but you could survive (assuming you land on actual ground and not just concrete).
An actual physicist can tear my idea apart, now.
Mythbusters did an episode about this idea but with elevator failure. Short answer is you still die.
Depends how fast the building is collapsing. Watching demolition videos is seems that it is often much slower than free fall. So you might have a change.
You jumping probably does not matter much in terms of velocity, although if you do have you feet on something heavy, you will be able to “jump” relative to the collapsing building. And it might just save you from being crushed between debris.
Wouldn’t your jump push the rubble underneath you towards the ground just a bit quicker, cancelling out your jump, so you’d basically achieve nothing?
But that’s another thing right? Rubble? A building does not fall in one piece.
Your fragile meat body is caught up in a tumbling maelstrom of rock and steel and glass until the fatal blow is dealt – either by the dance you’re all caught up in or by the foundations you’re racing towards.
No. Whether you’re standing on something that’s falling or just falling through the air the impact is going to do the same damage to you. Even if you could jump hard enough to significantly slow your fall you will still be exerting a similar amount of force on your body as you would feel when you hit the ground, otherwise the jump wouldn’t slow your fall.
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