why arent you crushed byt the column of air above you?

Answer 1

First, because air is not too heavy (check out the exact weight!)
Second, because you are not very crushable... it takes a lot of force to crush a human -- like, a train or a one of the bulldozers they use on the road.

The air outside of you can't crush in your lungs because the air inside your lungs is pushing out with the same force. And your flesh is made of cells which are really like tiny bags full of water... water is not crushable at all. So unless something smooshes you hard enough to rupture your cells, you wont crush.

If you go down deep in the ocean, like thousands of meters, then the weight of the column of water above you, that WILL crush you. That's because water is hugely heavier than air.

Answer 2

Because we're built to live under this column of air. Our bodies depend on having this column of air pressing down on us -- really, pressing from all sides; the pressure of the air is the same on all parts of us exposed to the air.

In fact, if you take away that column of air rapidly, all sorts of bad things happen.

The easiest way to visualize this is to take a room-temperature soda bottle that's never been opened (a clear bottle with a clear soda is easiest to see, like club soda), then twist the cap. See how all of a sudden bubbles form in the soda? That's dissolved gas -- carbon dioxide (CO2) in this case, which is kept in the liquid because of the pressure inside the soda bottle. The little space up above the top of the soda is the "column of air" that keeps the gas dissolved in the liquid.

When you open the soda bottle, that "column of air" disappears -- and nothing is keeping the gas dissolved in the liquid. So it boils out. Yes, boils -- boiling is when a vapor separates from a liquid and forms bubbles. We usually only think of boiling as something that happens from heat, but the temperature changes with the pressure. If you drop the pressure in the soda bottle enough, you'll boil the CO2 out of it.

Well... if you do the same thing to your body, you'll boil the air out of your blood. I understand it is EXCRUCIATINGLY painful. It's called "the bends," and it happens if divers have been deep underwater and come up too quickly.

If you were to do this REALLY fast -- like, say, open the door on the space station and step outside without your pressure suit -- you'd probably have bubbles in your blood forming almost as fast as they form in that pop-bottle experiment. I don't think there'd be be enough of a difference in pressure to burst through your skin and explode you like soda gushing out of a shaken-up soda can... but it wouldn't do much good for your brain, eyes, kidneys, liver, heart, intestines, and various other organs, body parts and tissues.

Answer 3

u could be crushed by a column of error above u
i.r.s. will send more columns later, crushed people are ken lay of Enron was crushed by one of these columns of error, happens everyday

Answer 4

Because the column of air above me DAMN WELL KNOWS it had better not try to get all heavy on me.
I already had to teach it a lesson, once.

Answer 5

It is simple. the column of air above you cannot crush you because of the principle of opposite pressure. The pressure of the external air is being equalized by the internal pressure within you called blood pressure. The pressure s exertr with each other making it a balance. thanks to your blood pressure you aint crushed by the air pressure.

Answer 6

Force of will.

Answer 7

because of gravity