Why can't you jump 6 times as high on the moon if you weigh 1/6th of what you weigh on Earth?

Question

On the moon, you weigh 1/6th of what you weigh on earth. If that's true, why can't you jump 6 times as high? I've been so some sites that say you can't but my physics teacher told me that you can't and challeged the class to find out why. Thanks for the help (if I get any)

Answer 1

Why don't you impress your teacher by doing the analysis yourself? Measure how high you can jump on earth and figure out what determines that height. Assume your legs provide a constant force over the first foot of motion, and that force would be the same on earth as on the moon. Then, calculate what would happen in both cases. Pretend you're just holding your breath and you don't need to lift a space suit that weighs more than you do. That's not the point.

Answer 2

This is a trick question. It all depends on how much energy you put into the jump. Weight and mass are not the same thing. You don't ever really weigh more or less than you do. Your body's mass remains constant, no matter what. The fact that gravity on the moon is one-sixth as powerful as earth's gravity does not change your mass. Let's say your mass is M and the amount of energy you need to lift that mass, say, 6 feet, is E. That will never change, regardless of where you are. What WILL change is how FAR you can continue traveling, once you are off the ground. You will travel 6 times as far on the moon as on the earth (perhaps more than 6 times as far as there is no air on the moon).

It is like this: Can you throw a ball that weighs 1 lb. 6 times as far as you can throw a ball that weighs 6 lbs? No, you can't. You'll throw the lighter ball a little further but not 6 times as far, because the amount of energy you have, in your body, to throw the ball, is limited. BUT if you put 6 times as much energy into throwing the 6 lb. ball as you did into throwing the 1 lb. ball then the 6 lb. ball will travel exactly as far as the 1 lb. ball. Or, to put it a different way, the 1 lb. ball will travel 6 times as far if you put exactly 6 times more energy into therowing it.

To simplify: Let's say that you can throw a 1 lb. ball 100 feet, if you use 1 unit of energy. If you use 6 units of energy, that ball will travel 600 feet. The same 6 units of energy will make a 6 lb. ball travel only 100 feet.

But your body does not get 6 times more energy by being on the moon. The amount of energy you have remains constant. Your mass also remains constant. The only thing that changes is the force of the gravitational pull. It will take 6 times as long for you to stop moving, on the moon, as it does on the earth. If you played basketball on the moon, you would hang in the air 6 times as long as you do in Chicago, but you would not be able to jump much higher.

Answer 3

No, you think of roughly it. once you bounce, whether on earth or the moon, your muscle mass will generate an analogous quantity of upward rigidity. in view that your mass is an analogous on earth and the moon, your preliminary velocity on the instantaneous your ft go away the exterior could be an analogous. besides the incontrovertible fact that, the instantaneous your ft go away the exterior, gravity might start to slow you down. by way of fact the gravitational pull on the moon could be in hassle-free terms one-6th of the gravitational pull on earth, you may decelerate in hassle-free terms one-6th as rapid on the moon, and you may bounce six circumstances as extreme. .

Answer 4

Because they use the metric system