if everyone on earth jumps at once?

Question

would the earth rotate off its course
lol i was wondering about that today
ahahha

Answer 1

Good question!

In fact, the Earth's course will not be altered. The reason for this is a fundamental rule of physics known as "conservation of momentum". It states that in any given system (our system is the Earth plus everything sitting on it), the momentum cannot change unless acted up by something OUTSIDE the system.

So, if all humans one ONE side of the planet made a super-powered jump and flew off the Earth entirely, never coming back down, the Earth would be sent off in a (very slightly) new direction. However, the total momentum of the ENTIRE system (Earth plus people) would not have changed.

Since we are only concerned with normal humans that jump and fall back to Earth, our system returns to normal in a very short time. The humans jump, exerting a force on the Earth, which in turn exerts a force on the humans' feet. The humans accelerate upward, and the Earth accelerates downward (a very small amount), then the humans reach the zenith of their jump, and they accelerate downwards. The Earth accelerates upwards a tiny amount, reversing its previous path. The end result is that both Earth and humans all end up on the course they were initially on.

Answer 2

Forget all that stuff about momentum, inertia and so on. Humanity is trillions of times less massive than Earth.

It is not too difficult to estimate the weight of humanity (junior school arithmetic).

Take 50kgs as average for a person, and multiply by 6 billion.

That is 300 billion Kgs

Which is 300 million tonnes

That is peanuts: the Earth is 6 billion trillion tonnes

That is 20 trillion times the mass of humanity - like fleas on Everest.

Why do people not realise that we just scurry around in the bottom 1% of the thin gaseous envelope we call the atmosphere. Also, urban areas of Earth represent about 5 % of the surface - the oceans, deserts, ice caps, mountains and wildernesses are most of the surface.

You could squash humanity into 1000 sq kms, which would be a square about 32 km wide (20 miles x 20 miles) - or an average sheep station in Australia,

Underneath is solid earth, millions of times the mass of our immediate biosphere.

I'll repeat the figure - Earth is 20,000,000,000,000 times the mass of humanity.

Answer 3

Lithium's answer is spot-on accurate. To everyone who argues that humans are too light compared to the Earth are forgetting that even the most infinitesimal change is still a change.

A similar example is whenever we fly our probes past planets for gravity assist. Each time we slingshot something past Jupiter, we actually change Jupiter's orbit. Of course the change is so minute that we couldn't directly measure it even with the most accurate equipment ever made. However, there is a definite calculable difference. This is because the probe takes some of Jupiter's momentum and uses it to speed up along the way to its destination.

Jumping people, not leaving the Earth simply return the momentum back to the Earth by falling back down again.

And to anyone worrying about us damaging the solar system by tapping Jupiter's momentum: we'd have to fly the whole Earth by Jupiter to have any appreciable effects on its orbit, so we're pretty safe doing what we're doing. Gravity assisting our little probes would be like taking 5 molecules of water out of the ocean. ;)

Answer 4

Lithium and ZeroByte are wrong. Think about it, guys, and re-read the question. All the human race jumping up and down would not propel the earth out of its orbit, or even make a minute change in its orbit.

If all the people on earth--all 525 million tons of us--moved to New Zealand, it would make a minute difference in the center of gravity of the earth. But we cannot affect the earth's orbit.

Answer 5

It would take a mostly iron asteroid with a 5000 mile diameter coming in at an average speed of 17km/s at 45 degrees to knock the earth off its access. The force of everyone on earth jumping at the same time on the same spot has no chance of affecting Earth's orbit.

Answer 6

I remember from a long time ago that the earth weighs 6 sextillion tons. Thats 21 0's. Thats alot. And alot more than people, And because its round. I dont think everyone jumin' at once would do anything.

Answer 7

You couldnt get definitely everyone to do it on the comparable time as a results of postpone in conversing "flow!" international extensive at precisely the comparable time. in case you do no longer take that under consideration, definitely everyone could leap and then decend at a quite distinctive fee (long/short legs, susceptible/reliable muscle groups and so on) so despite the fact that in the event that they could be all advised to bounce on the comparable time, the consequent jumps nonetheless wouldnt be in sync. in case you do no longer take THAT under consideration, the mass of definitely everyone interior the international verses the mass of the earth could be like 5 ants leaping on a warm air balloon attempting to get it to flow down.

Answer 8

think about this logically, there are people roughly all over the earth, if i jump then someone in australia also jumps and our two jumps cancel each other out. this happen all over the world and well basically nothing happens.

also the mass of everyone on earth is still tiny compared to the mass of the earth itself, jump all you want and it won't do anything.

Answer 9

considering the earth is round, no. If everyone lived on the same side of the world you might have something to wonder about! ;)

Answer 10

No. The earth is so heavy and strong, it wouldn't make a difference. Might make some dirt rise to the air.. haha