why is a person less likely to be injured when landing in soft sand than in concrete?

Answer 1

It's the sudden decelleration that does the damage. With sand, the decelleration is spread over a few centimetres. With concrete there is no give at all.

Answer 2

When u fall down then ur body is in moving position. Sand gives u a scope to move ahead a little. Sand is softer than concrete. Concrete things will be having more inertia and so a person is less likely to get injury when landing in soft sand.

Answer 3

the soft sand will absorb some of the energy of the fall, but the concrete will just sit there. I am assuming the concrete has hardened.

Answer 4

A body's momentum P is given by P=m*v, where m is the mass of the body and v its velocity.

Momentum is changed whenever an external force Fext is exerted on a body. Newton's second law may be written in the form

Fext=dP/dt, where dP is the change of momentum and dt the time period in which this change takes place.

From this formula we deduce that the longer a certain change of momentum takes to complete, the smaller the external force needed.

So when you land in soft sand (or cushion) you actually make longer the time it takes to make your momentum equal to zero, so force is comparatively small.

But when you land on concrete surface, dt is small, so Fext is much more likely to injure you.

Answer 5

Sand absorbes the engery of your fall and concrete doesn't. It's the same principal of vehicle crashes. There are crumple zones in most vehicles, decently new ones anyway, that are made to crumple in an accident and absorb the energy instead of transfereing it to the passengers.

Answer 6

because of the cushion from the sand. it gives more than the concrete.

Answer 7

concrete is hard, sand is soft, try banging your head against the wall, is it soft, or hard? Did it work?

Answer 8

It depends how high, how they land and if the concrete is set.

Answer 9

coz sand is soft

Answer 10

coz sand is softer?