will he live or die?

hey i was watching tv the other day, i got this idea.
scenario(sp) :

lets say, this guy is on a lift that is on the 10-20th level and the cable snapped and is plummeting down. just as the lift hits the ground, he jumps up...

will he survive?? pls explain



[edit on 23-1-2006 by rottonralph101]

[edit on 23-1-2006 by rottonralph101]

[edit on 23-1-2006 by rottonralph101]

Myth Busters did a show on this and they determined that now matter how god of a jumper you are, the impact will still kill you.

Would it be possible to jump? What would you have to jump from? There would be no leverage whatsoever.

You would be falling with the speed of the lift so regardless of what you do, your still at the same speed. Its like jumping out of a car and trying to run, you can't because you are travelling at the speed of the car.

my .02 worth anyways

Originally posted by chissler


Its like jumping out of a car and trying to run, you can't because you are travelling at the speed of the car.

my .02 worth anyways

but then the car and the lift jump is totally different (i think), cos of the direction of the jump. the lift jump is parallel to the falling and opposite. the car car is perpendicular to the direction of motion.

anyway thanks for clearing that up. i guess if one should ever be stuck in that situation, he's just screwed.

I had seen that episode of mythbusters and he is talking about an elevator car. You would most likely die. You would need to be able to jump up at the same speed the elevator is falling without hitting the ceiling of it. Best bet would be to lay flat down or something they said. But chances are you would still die.

Not a likely scenario anyway. All elevator cars (in the US anyway) have a minimum of 4 cables; he likelyhood of all 4 snapping at once is miniscule. In the unlikely event this did happen, there are several braking mechanisms that would stop the descent after only a few inches of freefall.

Longest Fall Survived In An Elevator
Betty Lou Oliver (USA) an elevator operator, survived a plunge of 75 stories (over 300 m or 1,000 ft) in an elevator in the Empire State Building, New York, USA, on July 28, 1945.

The accident occurred after a B-25 bomber accidentally crashed into the Empire State building during a particularly severe bout of fog.
www.guinnessworldrecords.com...

The story from Guinness goes on to say that the narrow shaft may have slowed the elevator a bit by compressing the air below the falling car and that the cables coiled like a spring at the bottom to soften the blow.

You wouldn't be able to crouch because the floor is falling at the same rate as your body. When you bend your knees to crouch you "allow yourself to fall" slowly while your muscles support you. Only if your feet were fixed or hooked into the floor somehow would you then be able to utilizing contraction action of your muscles to crouch, pulling yourself down to the floor instead of falling/supporting.

Now assuming you were already crouching when the lift started to fall from the 20th floor, and assuming 3m for each floor and no air resistance, when you reach the bottom you and the lift will be traveling at just under 35m/s, or 126km/h. Assuming you can jump upwards at just the right moment at a rate of 10 m/s, you will smash into the ground at 25m/s, or just under 100km/h. Game over for you and the lift.

Theoretically, you could save yourself from a fall of 5.1m by jumping at the right time, because the lift would be traveling at 10m/s when it hit the ground.

Originally posted by wecomeinpeace
You wouldn't be able to crouch because the floor is falling at the same rate as your body. When you bend your knees to crouch you "allow yourself to fall" slowly while your muscles support you. Only if your feet were fixed or hooked into the floor somehow would you then be able to utilizing contraction action of your muscles to crouch, pulling yourself down to the floor instead of falling/supporting.

Now assuming you were already crouching when the lift started to fall from the 20th floor, and assuming 3m for each floor and no air resistance, when you reach the bottom you and the lift will be traveling at just under 35m/s, or 126km/h. Assuming you can jump upwards at just the right moment at a rate of 10 m/s, you will smash into the ground at 25m/s, or just under 100km/h. Game over for you and the lift.

Theoretically, you could save yourself from a fall of 5.1m by jumping at the right time, because the lift would be traveling at 10m/s when it hit the ground.

i still believe that a person can survive when he jumps at just that crucial moment when its about to crash. assuming that the lift is spacious not those small ones...where when u jump the ceiling will crash with ur head...

Originally posted by anxietydisorder

Longest Fall Survived In An Elevator
Betty Lou Oliver (USA) an elevator operator, survived a plunge of 75 stories (over 300 m or 1,000 ft) in an elevator in the Empire State Building, New York, USA, on July 28, 1945.

The accident occurred after a B-25 bomber accidentally crashed into the Empire State building during a particularly severe bout of fog.
www.guinnessworldrecords.com...

The story from Guinness goes on to say that the narrow shaft may have slowed the elevator a bit by compressing the air below the falling car and that the cables coiled like a spring at the bottom to soften the blow.

Yup - they also discussed this on Mythbusters. It was nothing but sheer luck and happenstance that the air was compressed and the cables were bunched up. I'd not want to bet my life on that happening agian.

I think this is more or less the same as "the fly in the car" rule. (Yeah I'm making up physics rules as I go along .)

Here's the scenario:
You're driving your car. A fly is along for the ride (in the car). When you drive off - no matter how fast, it doesnt hit the back window, however... If that same fly is at your side window (outside), when you drive off it only watches you depart in the distance....

So, let us say that there are two things that will affect the velocity of the fly;
1) Va, the velocity of the air that surrounds the fly and
2) Vr, the fly's velocity relative this air. (We're assuming this is all happening in a straight line.) The latter will be determined by the fly's behaviour. So V = Vr + Va.
Suppose I am driving along at 20 km/h and there is a fly somewhere outside my car, zooming along at 20 km/h in the same direction. Let us also ignore turbulence and wind, so that we may say that Va = 0 km/h and Vr = 20 km/h air, so V=20km/h. Now, let us say that this fly is content to maintain this speed (it isn't trying to keep up with us). We accelerate, but the fly's relative speed doesn't change, the air speed doesn't change, so V still equals 20 km/h, and the fly tastes our dust.
Suppose instead that the fly is in the car. Va in the car is 20 km/h, the same as the speed of the car. The fly is also moving at the same speed as the car, but Vr = 0km/h. Relative to the air it is in, it is just hovering. We apply acceleration, Va also increases, but Vr stays at zero. So the fly stays at whatever speed the car is doing, and doesn't smack the back window.

There is also another thing to consider:
When you apply a force to the car and accelerate away you will also apply a force to the air inside the car via
1)the back window creating a higher presure on the air
2)the front windscreen creating a lower presure on the air.
As your fly is hovering in this air, it is producing a force equal and oposite to its mass therefore giving it the appearace of maitaining a stable position. As this air moves with the car your intrepid fly gets forced to go with the flow, that is it moves with the air in the car because this air is applying a force to the fly (in actual fact it will move to the back of the car a small amount).

Now, doesn't all of this apply to the "man in the falling elevator" situation?

I wonder if you could jump up and like, grab the light fixture by one hand. When the car hit and crumpled, there would be terrific force down on your gripping arm, and probably shatter it, but then you'd only fall a couple of feet to the bottom of the car.

If you lived, people would address you as "lefty" forever after.

Just thinking about the cop joke:

Q: "did he die of the fall?"

A: "Not so much that, as the sudden stop at the bottom."

.

reply to post by rottonralph101


No. I'm sorry.


It just doesn't work that way.

I don't know if there's a name for such thinking, as you're having, but I'm very familiar with it and the psychology behind it.

If I had a name for it, I'd call it "glorified refusal of death" mindset.



Children often get it, which is why I ponder how old the OP was when he wrote this.







Instead of accepting that bad things can really happen to us, we think of ways that we could, in unusual ways, get around those bad things happening to us.


If someone shoots me, is it possible even if I moved really fast to step out of the way of it I'd survive?

If I'm swimming and a shark attacks me and I had a knife handy, is it possible I'd be able to stab it and live?

Likewise, could I be attacked by a full sized Tiger/Lion while carrying a pocket knife and live?

If I'm drowning could I find some unusual way to breathe that others don't think of to escape this gruesome reality?

If I'm in a fire is it possible to fight through it without dying? no, because of smoke inhalation.

Although all of these things do have very rare escapes to them, I hope you get my point. What's occurring with you is the refusal to accept that we, including you, are just weak beings that could really go at any point to any freak circumstance. I pray it does not happen to you, though, and that we all die very civil and as peaceful of deaths as possible.

Is it possible for me to jump at the same time a lift falls?

No. Ridiculous, absolutely not. Lifts (elevators here in the US) fall at an incredible speed and not only does the whole box shatter and cut you up, but the impact from the fall alone would kill you.

If you are TRAVELING the same speed of the Lift, or whatever you're on, all the way down as it increases in speed.

What speed is it you think you are going? Why, you're going the same speed as the Lift.


Imagine it. Imagine jumping off a tall building with a surfboard. Would you be able to JUMP from the surfboard?

Even if you somehow managed to keep the surfboard underneath you, which some can,
You would still not be able to push yourself from the surfboard.


Does it make a difference that the Lift is enclosed?

No, not really.


Look back the the "fly in car" theory.


Everything in the car, including you, is in same relativity to the Fly. If you get in a wreck, that fly would die and suffer the same impact you would.

Yes, it would, EXCEPT for the fact that the Fly is so light it probably won't be damaged/effected much by it.

But, the thing in the car (you) which is relative to the Fly's current stance, that does indeed weigh enough to suffer damage, WILL feel the impact of a 70 mph crash even though you are ENCLOSED (just like you're enclosed in the Lift).

Yes, that's why people die in car accidents every day. Because you cannot jump up in a Lift and save your life.

If you could, then you could jump up from a car seat and suddenly save yourself.


Down, up, or forward, backward doesn't really matter.... especially at that speed.