Profound Query of the Day

doofer

doofer

doofer

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
7,986
Location
Hear, their, everyware ;)
As a result of quite a heated discussion in the pub last night..

If a human was to wrap oneself in layers and layers and layers of bubblewrap and got said bubblewrap at least a meter in thickness or more, would the human survive if they jumped off a sky-scraper type building of 20-30 floors (about 500ft), you get the picture, would massive layers of standard bubblewrap around you cushion the fall enough for you to survive hitting solid terra firma.

Discuss. :D
 
I think you should test it with an animal first, a good sized dog would be best.
 
Nope

the speed picked up on the way down would probably negate most of the bubble wrap :p

and kill you
 
Last edited:
No because on impact your organs would smash againt your ribs etc and kill you Dead.
 
malc30 said:
No because on impact your organs would smash againt your ribs etc and kill you Dead.
Click to expand...

My thoughts to, the force and the jolt of stopping so quick would mangle your insides lol
 
malc30 said:
No because on impact your organs would smash againt your ribs etc and kill you Dead.
Click to expand...

And you brain would also be damaged by swishing around in the skull. Its not the fall that kills you, its the rapid deceleration.
 
malc30 said:
No because on impact your organs would smash againt your ribs etc and kill you Dead.
Click to expand...

yep, your body would stop when it hit the ground, but your organs would still be going, of course there you could always have major surgery to get your organs held in place, but that wouldn't be worth it?
 
this relates to a discussion i had with a surgeon friend...

I asked:

When a person falls from a great height, is it the solid surface they hit which kills them or the rapid decelleration that does it? ie if we could stop someone rapidly, without involving a hard surface would they survive?

The conclusion we came to was that its the rapid decelleration that kills (as in car accidents - car stops, and the force of our bodies being stopped by belts and stuff kills us.

If the bubble wrap compressed enough to slow us down gradually enough tho, then yeah i think you'd survive - but you'd need either highly compressible bubble wrap (without rebound) or loads and loads of it...
 
doofer said:
As a result of quite a heated discussion in the pub last night..

If a human was to wrap oneself in layers and layers and layers of bubblewrap and got said bubblewrap at least a meter in thickness or more, would the human survive if they jumped off a sky-scraper type building of 20-30 floors (about 500ft), you get the picture, would massive layers of standard bubblewrap around you cushion the fall enough for you to survive hitting solid terra firma.

Discuss. :D
Click to expand...

Terminal velocity is about 120mph = 54 m/s

If you're surrounded by 1m of bubble wrap, you're decelrating from 54m/s to 0m/s in a space of 1m.

Thats a g force of about 145G.

You'd die, badly.
 
I watched a program on one of the sky chanels (horizon repeat i think) about crash testing.

This included using cadavars, living monkeys and people for testing and designing the dummys. It also explained the g forces that people could take without damage.

There were some shockingly high g forces that could be safely applied to people over very very short times safely, but allot lower numbers over anything over a fraction of a second.

Safely just ment you werent dead as well, detacted retena and things like that were the order of the day.

Personally i think it would kill you from a good height, think of it like an air bag, stunt men dont jump of highrises (over a certain height) into them cause they'd still get killed and there deceleration is allot better controled.
 
"And here comes the science part.. pay attention everyone." ;)

Visage said:
Terminal velocity is about 120mph = 54 m/s

If you're surrounded by 1m of bubble wrap, you're decelrating from 54m/s to 0m/s in a space of 1m.

Thats a g force of about 145G.

You'd die, badly.
Click to expand...
 
Visage said:
Terminal velocity is about 120mph = 54 m/s

If you're surrounded by 1m of bubble wrap, you're decelrating from 54m/s to 0m/s in a space of 1m.

Thats a g force of about 145G.

You'd die, badly.
Click to expand...

What about say 3m of bubble wrap? Assuming you didn't just make that up of course.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom