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
No. The reason has to do with potential energy versus kinetic energy. As you stand at the top of the building, gravity imparts to you a certain amount of potential energy. It keeps that form as long as you remain that high up. If you take an elevetor or climb down, that potential energy is converted to kinetic energy as you descend. What makes elevators and climbing safe is that the conversion happens slowly. Your body can take slow changes of this kind pretty well.
When the building collapses, the potential energy begins to convert to kinetic energy. But now there’s no elevator or rope or whatever, so the conversion happens quickly. When you hit the ground, the kinetic energy all dissipates at once, and some of that goes into the ground, but most of it splatters you all over the place.
If you jump just before you hit the bottom, you will convert some of that kinetic energy back into potential energy. But there are two problems with this. The second problem is that you will still need something to grab onto or otherwise support you: without that, you will just start falling again.
But the bigger problem is that you can’t really dissipate enough kinetic energy this way to make a difference. This isn’t to say that it’s totally imposssible, but to convert *all* of the kinetic energy back to potential energy, you’d need to be able to jump all the way back up to your original altitude. If that was four stories up, you just can’t jump that high.
Latest Answers