Question.

G-MAN2004

G-MAN2004

G-MAN2004

Caporegime
Joined
4 Jul 2004
Posts
30,798
After reading about tall buildings, I noticed the Taipei 101 tower in Taiwan has the world's fastest lifts, which operate at 17 metres per second. This got me wondering, if you're going down in the lift and decide to jump, will you go crashing through the roof of it? :p

Silly question most likely, but oh well!
 
Mat said:
Not unless the lift is falling at a faster rate than freefall.
Click to expand...

Wrong.

The answer is no, unless you can jump upwards at > 17m/s.

I'd guess most of us can jump up at maybe 1 m/s at most. If the lift is going down at 17m/s, you are going down at 17m/s. If you jump up at 1m/s, you are still going down at 16m/s.

Relativity, yo.
 
At the moment you jump you will be falling at 17 metres per second too. I don't know the speed of a jumping person but I imagine your decrease in speed would be very small!

Damnit! Beaten by the helmet!
 
well, 17 meters per second is about 37 miles per hour, the average human jumps at a rough velocity of ~32mph, so I would say, as you're travelling at the same velocity as the lift, then in theory your only going to achieve ~5mph of jump velocity. So no, you wouldn't. *


*This is probably extremely wrong!
 
vonhelmet said:
Wrong.

The answer is no, unless you can jump upwards at > 17m/s.

I'd guess most of us can jump up at maybe 1 m/s at most. If the lift is going down at 17m/s, you are going down at 17m/s. If you jump up at 1m/s, you are still going down at 16m/s.

Relativity, yo.
Click to expand...

Sorry, fixed ;)
 
It's the same instance as, if you're driving 70mph in a car and a fly flies in through the window and stays still, is it moving at 70mph or 0mph?

It's all relative.
 
Yes you would, so be careful because the weight of the elevator would hurt!

The effect is similar to how a plane takes off from a travelator style belt going the opposite way.
 
vonhelmet said:
Wrong.

The answer is no, unless you can jump upwards at > 17m/s.

I'd guess most of us can jump up at maybe 1 m/s at most. If the lift is going down at 17m/s, you are going down at 17m/s. If you jump up at 1m/s, you are still going down at 16m/s.

Relativity, yo.
Click to expand...
What if the lift was moving at 1m/s, would you float?
 
Relativity is a nasty thing.

OP, think of it this way. I think I've got it right.

Lift is dropping at 17m/s. When you jump up, you probably go 'up' by 1m/s or something, I doubt humans can jump much faster than that. This means that while you are in the air, you are still descending at 17 - 1 = 16m/s.

IF, and a big IF here, you could jump at the same speed as the lift is descending and provided you had enough room, you would essentially be immobile at one point (0 m/s) and this is when the lift would come down and hit you.
 
Wear spandex.

Reduce aero your *drag.

*Your drag might actually increase, especially with lipstick applied.
 
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