if in a falling elevator, is it possible to jump at the last second to lessen the impact?

Question

just a thought...

i guess i missed that episode. and i'm not your 'babe' becker... i'm a dude!

Answer 1

Only if you have legs strong enough to transfer most of your momentum to the floor of the elevator, and a head hard enough not to crack when you burst through the elevator's ceiling. But in that case you probably have no need of elevators.

There is a good Bugs Bunny cartoon in which Bugs simply steps out of a plummeting airplane to avoid the crash.

Answer 2

The greater the speed you have at impact, the greater the force of impact. It's just a matter of substracting speeds. The fraction of a second before impact you will have a certain speed If you jump at that particular fraction of time and taking for granted the doubtful muscle capacity to lift yourself from the bottom of the elevator, your possibility of attaining any but the least inverse speed, is almost nill. But just in case you did, the extremely low speed that you could achieve would be almost nothing compared to your downward speed. Therefore the conclusion is that even if it were possible for you to jump, it would hardly make a difference on the force of impact.

Answer 3

The correct answer is yes, of course.
Ignoring relativity (which is acceptable at these
speeds), you can subtract your velocity from the
velocity of the falling elevator. Impact is a change
in momentum over a small time, so it would most
definitely lessen the impact.

However! If the elevator was falling fast enough to
injure you, you would not get enough velocity from
your jump to really lessen the damage to you at all.

The Mythbusters show illustrated this last point, but the
technical answer to your question is ABSOLUTELY!
It's a matter of physics!

Answer 4

Well, enough people have answered the question you asked, so I thought I'd answer your next one and save you the five points for having to ask it: Is it safe to take elevators? how likely are they to fail catastrophically and allow me to fall many stories to my death...?

Modern elevators contain a device which works automatically. It is based on a speed governor. As the elevator begins to fall faster than it is designed to do (and remember, most of them travel fairly slowly, for comfort-- nobody likes to get nauseous in the elevator) a wheel spins faster than normal. This is a simple mechanical device and not dependent on electricity. The latching part of the device is therefore flung outward by centripetal acceleration (look it up!) and presses against the walls of the elevator shaft.

(I believe there is even a sort of ratcheting mechanism, so that the elevator is locked in place and cannot be lowered any further without first being raised up to the next floor.) So the safety mechanism is deliberately made redundant and as fool proof as possible.

Of course, in event of fire, the power is shut off and the elevators should not be used. Take the stairs, do not run, follow the directions of the fire marshalls and you will be fine.

Answer 5

no, the elevator because you would be going already way too fast to be able to lessen the impact. You would face certain death in a falling elevator. There's actually an episode about that on mythbusters.

Answer 6

u cannot reduce the velocity of impact by jumping out(neglecting air drag)cause u'll be be movin with the same velocity, even if you jumped out. if u could hold on to the elevator tightly then it would be safer to be in the elevator cause some or much of the impact energy would be absorbed by the elevator body. it would act as a protective shield to some extent

Answer 7

I have wondered that many a time myself whilst riding on elevators. I think in theory it would lessen the damage to yourself. But how do you know the exact split second to jump before it hits?

Answer 8

Theoretically the answer is no. Gravity will increase on your body making it almost impossible to jump up. Wouldn't matter anyway, even if you survive the fall, you are probably not going to survive the falling debris from the elevator car itself.

Answer 9

tuck and roll, babe. tuck and roll.

You'd still be traveling as fast as the falling elevator when you come back down from your jump, my guess is you'd injure yourself even more. I'd say that lying flat on the floor of the elevator is your safest bet.

Answer 10

My dad told me years ago if I was ever in that situation, to do that. I have no way of knowing when the last second would be so I guess I'd just have to keep jumping the whole time and hope that I was in midair when we crashed.