Surviving an elevator accident

[Caruso329]

Negating air resistance all objects fall at the same velocity. If you are in a vacuum and take a rock and a leaf and drop them at the same time, they will fall at the same rate. That's why the penny off the empire state building myth is false.

Ok, I have also wondered something similar to this as a child watching Looney Tunes. When Wile E. Coyote is on the edge of a cliff, and that part breaks off, he rides it to the bottom where it hits. Now, would the same concept apply if he were able to jump at the moment before it hit the ground and survive because there was no roof for him to hit his head on?

[Alobar]

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How is weight relevant?

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well unless wacki thinks heavy objects fall faster cuz of gravity (which could be possible), Im guessing he means it will have a higher terminal velocity

[jakethebake]

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I'm still jumping until someone comes with a better idea.

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BAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
This post is so funny. Yah, gravity will pwn you even if you jump at the last second. Say you had super-strength jumping ability. If you jumped really hard, you'd hit the ceiling of the elevator so hard you would die.

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I understand all that, but can't hoit. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[CORed]

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Of course if you have the ability to execute such a jump, then I'd say there's a good chance you will be able to survive the crash anyway.

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If you had the ability to execute such a jump, you wouldn't need to use an elevator in the first place.

[CORed]

Even if the elevator is in freefall, your jump would give you upward velocity relative to the elvator, because the mass of the elevator is much higher than your mass. You would acceerate the elevator downward a little, and accelerate yourself upward considerably more. You still wouldn't change your velocity relative to the ground enough to do you any good, of course. Also, if the elevator is in freefall, you might well drifft far enough away from floor that you would not be able to push off of it. If the elevator has reached terminal velocity, you would experience a normal 1g, until it hit bottom, when you would experience enough acceleration to kill you.

[jstnrgrs]

yes, I did know that.

[jstnrgrs]

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Ok, I have also wondered something similar to this as a child watching Looney Tunes. When Wile E. Coyote is on the edge of a cliff, and that part breaks off, he rides it to the bottom where it hits. Now, would the same concept apply if he were able to jump at the moment before it hit the ground and survive because there was no roof for him to hit his head on?

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I think Wile E. Coyote will survive no matter what he does.

If we are in the real world, there is no way that he could jump that high.

If we were in a world in which Wile could die, but he also had super jumping capabilities, then yes, he could survive.

[wacki]

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How is weight relevant?

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Unless if you are in a vacuum, it is very relevant for speed. Otherwise, there is this thing called inerta.