What would happen if the entire population of the earth was to jump simultaneously?

Question

Would this cause a huge tremor?

Answer 1

Assuming everybody landed at the same time, it would send a small probably undetectable tremor around the world.

Lets assume the average person weighs 80kg and that there are 6 billion people alive right now, and they all jumped and landed at the same time.
Thats an impact force of 80x6,000,000,000x9.81, which is 4,708,800,000,000 Newtons, or 4.7 Tera-newtons.

There would be literally no measurable effect on the surface. The earth is more than capable of taking that kind of impact spread over such an area.

So what we're looking at is what would happen when the force hits the centre of the earth, and whether or not its even worth mentioning..

Well, lets assumes that of those 6 billion people, the average footsize is a size 7 (uk), taking up roughly 0.2 square metres.
Thats a total area of 1.2 billion square metres.

This gives us a pressure of 3924 N/m^2 or 0.6psi.

Which, you'll agree, is not a lot.
Thats per person.

What we need to do is calculate the total pressure for the combined world population after it has dissipated from travelling to the centre.

The pressure wave will decrease in amplitude by half for every metre it travels. And it has to travel 6,378,150 metres.

I dont actually have a calculator good enough to handle the numbers, but its basically:

Total pressure wave at centre = (3924 / 2^6,378,150) x 6,000,000,000

Now, although I can't give you a real number for the cumulative pressure at the centre, I can tell you its as close to zero as a number may ever be.

So basically, the effect of everybody on earth jumping and landing at the same time is...




12,000,000,000 footprints.

Interesting question anyway.

Answer 2

Even if the event could be coordianted it would have no effect on the earth at all.

The earth weighs about 5,972,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (5.9725 sextillion) metric tons (metric ton=2204 lbs). Assume 8 billion people live on the planet and they each weight 200 lbs. Total weight is about 726,000 metric tons or a shade more than .0000001% of the earths weight. Even given the fact that all those people jumped and the impact added to weight provided a 4X force factor, there would be no impact, except maybe a few broken legs and sprained ankles.

This is a little like asking what the effects would be on an 18 wheeler if it ran over an empy coke can.

Answer 3

There was World Jump Day last year, where people tried to organise the people of the western hemisphere into jumping at different times of the day to see if they could push the Earth into another orbit that wouldn't cause global warming.
It's true!
Obviously, nothing happened.

Answer 4

Nothing happen. The earth is a huge mass compare to the total mass of all people in the planet so that its have no effect.

Answer 5

The people in wheelchairs would be mighty happy.

Nope, no tremors. Sorry. The mass of the people is negligible compared with the mass of bedrock beneath them.

Answer 6

The earth would bounce & go into orbit somewhere else.

Perhaps to another Galaky where the air is clean & forests are not chopped down & bush & blair would not be allowed

Answer 7

no but they would all land together. (or about the same time based on height of the jump power in the spring and that fun stuff.

Answer 8

Everyone on Earth? What about the wheelchair fellas? You haven't thought this through very well, have ya?

Answer 9

Might make a few cracks, it will all depends where they were. Some might be in buildings, come on the ground, some either in water.

Answer 10

Absolutely nothing.