Question about Falling Elevator

[silverpig]

Since you are also accelerating at hte same rate the elevator is, you are technically traveling the same speed as the elevator

No you're not. The elevator will have a drag induced tv. You won't. If you could fall far enough, you'd actually re-gain all of your weight with respect to the elevator.

You've experienced this feeling in a regular elevator. When it begins to pick up speed downwards, you feel your stomach drop out and you feel as though you're falling. Then, once the elevator reaches it's maximum downwards speed, you feel normal again. It's no different when it's falling. If I put you in an elevator on earth that wasn't accelerating, you wouldn't be able to tell if you were going up, down, or staying still.


Extending this (and bringing in that previously mentioned idea of there not being an experiment to tell if you're free falling or not), if I put you on an elevator and you couldn't see outside, and you had weight, you wouldn't be able to tell if you were accelerating upwards, or just in a gravitational field. The same is true if you didn't have weight. You wouldn't be able to tell if you were floating in the absence of gravity, or if the elevator was just matching your acceleration and speed precisely.

 

[Omegachi]

so whats the verdict?

 

[Evadman]

Originally posted by: Omegachi
so whats the verdict?

To your queston? NO!

To kelvrick's, the answer is: The gerbal wins!

 

[silverpig]

Verdict: Glass floor, perfect timing, good legs... Jump. You can do yourself some good.

Normal elevator, normal guy... Kiss the hot chick beside you and enjoy it while it lasts.

 

[spidey07]

Fine I'll shoot...

If elevator was in pure freewall with only gravity as the acting force then...NO, by jumping you are sending force downward. You'll accelerate the elevator and because newton had a pretty good handle on things have an equal and opposite force upward.

NOW - add other real world forces like there would have to be some kind of air/pully/friction (banging things on the side, etc) going on your jumping wouldn't not accelerate the elevator down as much and hence your motion would be more up. Actually decelerating your fall.

How hard you jump, the mass of the elevator in question and any friction involved plus the actually fall height would give you your answer.

Humans jump what? 3 feet? somebody do the math on a 200 pound man jumping three feet. There's you're downward force from jumping.

 

[Utterman]

Originally posted by: Evadman
After the first jump you would be floating in midair in the elevator until the air resistance slowed the acceleration of the elevator.

ragingbithc as long as your feet are touching the floor you will be able to exert force on the floor and push yourself away. You and the elevator are falling at the same rate. Astronauts do it all the time. The shuttle is actually "falling" towards the earth at the same speed the earth curves away underneith it. ( way oversimplified, but it works ) they are in perpetual freefall.

If for some unlikely circumstance you do end up in a falling elevator, do as people have sugjested and lay flat. Will you still die? Yes. But you will most likely be able to have an open coffin funeral unless you are stupid enough to lie in the center of the elevator. That is where the super duper shock absorber is, and it would punch a nice hole though you. Lie on the outsides for a open casket funeral.

Maybe if you hit the floor 1 button the elevator would open the doors at the 1st floor and you could jump out if you had good timing.


<phy talking>
yes I know getting out at floor 1 will not work, but it does in cartoons. Hell, the mind can do amasing things. Maybe if you convince yourself that you have no momentum, you will have none, and can just step off.

That would make a really cool entrance.

 

[Evadman]

Originally posted by: silverpig
Verdict: Glass floor, perfect timing, good legs... Jump. You can do yourself some good.

The "good" would be at most a 3-4 mph difference. hitting the ground at 125 mph or 121 is not going to make any difference at all. You still end up squashed

 

[Brian23]

The verdict, as the Simpsons would say:

"Skinner said that the teachers would crack any minute purple monkey dishwasher"

"Well, we'll show him, especialy for that purple monkey dishwasher!"

 

[Kelvrick]

Originally posted by: silverpig

Since you are also accelerating at hte same rate the elevator is, you are technically traveling the same speed as the elevator

No you're not. The elevator will have a drag induced tv. You won't. If you could fall far enough, you'd actually re-gain all of your weight with respect to the elevator.

You've experienced this feeling in a regular elevator. When it begins to pick up speed downwards, you feel your stomach drop out and you feel as though you're falling. Then, once the elevator reaches it's maximum downwards speed, you feel normal again. It's no different when it's falling. If I put you in an elevator on earth that wasn't accelerating, you wouldn't be able to tell if you were going up, down, or staying still.


Extending this (and bringing in that previously mentioned idea of there not being an experiment to tell if you're free falling or not), if I put you on an elevator and you couldn't see outside, and you had weight, you wouldn't be able to tell if you were accelerating upwards, or just in a gravitational field. The same is true if you didn't have weight. You wouldn't be able to tell if you were floating in the absence of gravity, or if the elevator was just matching your acceleration and speed precisely.

Yea, once the elevator reaches its maximum downward velocity, you would also be at that speed. If it hits the ground before this, you probably won't die anyway. Why do you disagree with me in the first sentance and then prove me right in the second paragraph?

Verdict? Your ass is gonna die no matter what. Best action? Climb out the top of the elevator if you're fast enough and prey to god you have enough grip to grab onto the wall. That, or prey the big monkey god will destroy the top half of the building and hold the elevator line so you don't die.

<== monkey dance

 

[worth]

The verdict? Don't get in an elevator with a broken cable.

 

[silverpig]

It'd do more good than a 3-4 mph difference. First of all, you can jump much faster than that. Second of all, you will then have your extended legs right below you with a whole lot of muscle tension. This will give you an extra 2.5 feet or so of deceleration zone with a pretty decent amount of energy absorbtion.

You can stand still, but I'm gonna be the guy watching the numbers fly by and jumping when they get close to the bottom.

 

[Evadman]

Silver: The tension would just turn your bones into little schrapnel pieces would it not?

AFAIK, 4 stories is about the best a good set of legs can absorb. ( a good 14 m/s speed wise ) Atleast that is what I remember from my Ski Patrol training all those years ago.

 

[IcemanJer]

Originally posted by: Brian23
Why does everyone keep talking about monkey dances? What significance do they hold? Is there some pic/movie I have to see to be "in the monkey dance club"?

ah, you haven't been around long enough..

 

[Kelvrick]

Originally posted by: IcemanJer

Originally posted by: Brian23
Why does everyone keep talking about monkey dances? What significance do they hold? Is there some pic/movie I have to see to be "in the monkey dance club"?

ah, you haven't been around long enough..

He joined in 1999. Before I joined... I guess he just doesn't spend enough time here.

<== monkey dance

 

[silverpig]

Because I'm using the blurring of apparent weight and apparent acceleration. Different reference frames.

When the elevator first drops, it will slightly out-accelerate you (compression in your joints will push you up slightly). You will then accelerate at the same rate as the elevator, but it will have a slightly higher downwards speed than you will. Once drag kicks in, you will out-accelerate the elevator and catch up to it.

This is to what I was referring. It was previously suggested that you'd be in a perfect free fall and you wouldn't have any weight. If you didn't have any weight and were in a perfect free fall, then it'd be a slightly different story.

 

[Kelvrick]

Originally posted by: silverpig
Because I'm using the blurring of apparent weight and apparent acceleration. Different reference frames.

When the elevator first drops, it will slightly out-accelerate you (compression in your joints will push you up slightly). You will then accelerate at the same rate as the elevator, but it will have a slightly higher downwards speed than you will. Once drag kicks in, you will out-accelerate the elevator and catch up to it.

This is to what I was referring. It was previously suggested that you'd be in a perfect free fall and you wouldn't have any weight. If you didn't have any weight and were in a perfect free fall, then it'd be a slightly different story.

Yea well, we're all screwed anyway. I'm gonna not come in this thread anymore.

<== farewell monkey dance

 

[silverpig]

Silver: The tension would just turn your bones into little schrapnel pieces would it not?

I'm no bio guy, but I'd think that your bones would survive that part, but your legs would just crumple. Your muscles would absorb some energy, but it'd be like trying to squat too much weight. Your legs would just give out under the pressure. Once you are in a full squatting position and are still undergoing deceleration, then yeah, your bones would get all messed up, but they'd be fine from full leg extension to full leg compression.

 

[silverpig]

How about we turn this into another 0.9r vs 1 thread

 

[ObiDon]

Since you are also accelerating at hte same rate the elevator is, you are technically traveling the same speed as the elevator, and so in the same point in the time/space theory thingy. God damn, I forgot the name, ok?!

Frame of reference?

If elevator was in pure freewall with only gravity as the acting force then...NO, by jumping you are sending force downward. You'll accelerate the elevator and because newton had a pretty good handle on things have an equal and opposite force upward.

Yes, you *would* be exerting a force on the elevator but your velocity would change more than that of the elevator because it weighs a lot more than you do.
Think of it this way...when you shoot a gun, the bullet goes out at a gazillion MPH but the gun doesn't recoil at a gazillion MPH because it's heavier. That's why larger caliber guns are physically larger (okay, okay...more massive) than small caliber guns.
Don't forget your conservation of momentum.

Climb out the top of the elevator if you're fast enough and prey to god you have enough grip to grab onto the wall.

Maybe your arms/fingers would "survive" since they'd most likely rip off!

<== Frame of Reference/Conservation of Momentum chinchilla dance

 

[spidey07]

Thanks for checking ObiDon.

Doesn't seem too hard to work the math on this one though. You're definately right, mass of elevator matters much.

Haven't been in college for 10 years so I'd rather not "do the math".

More I thought about it, you'd better be in a squating position when the elevator falls. Otherwise you'd never be able to squat to prepare for the jump...you'd wind up floating a foot above the floor...all the while wondering if you'll catch the elevator.

Newton and Friction's everything on this one.

 

[zippy]

Try and climb out onto the top of the elevator and lay flat on that. That way you have more stuff beneath you to absorb the shock (?) but, more importantly, when the elevator collapses and whatnot, you'll be on the top of the pile and not the middle.

 

[silverpig]

you'd wind up floating a foot above the floor...all the while wondering if you'll catch the elevator.

Naw, you'd catch up. But yeah, starting in a squatting position would help, as you wouldn't really have to catch up, putting you in a better position if the floor comes a little sooner.

 

[diskop]

Originally posted by: zippy
Try and climb out onto the top of the elevator and lay flat on that. That way you have more stuff beneath you to absorb the shock (?) but, more importantly, when the elevator collapses and whatnot, you'll be on the top of the pile and not the middle.

Once you climb on top of the elevator you could make a grab for the rope that holds the counterweight. Well, if you're less than halfway down that is

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Uh, laying flat on the floor will cause more damage than anything else. All of your internal organs will be exposed to the full shock of the impact and most likely rupture all over the place. You are better off just standing up and taking the shattering of both your ankles. But the best thing to do is get on the floor like you are going to do a push up and not lock your elbows.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: diskop

Originally posted by: zippy
Try and climb out onto the top of the elevator and lay flat on that. That way you have more stuff beneath you to absorb the shock (?) but, more importantly, when the elevator collapses and whatnot, you'll be on the top of the pile and not the middle.

Once you climb on top of the elevator you could make a grab for the rope that holds the counterweight. Well, if you're less than halfway down that is

I still say your best option is for a quickie with the hot chick in the elevator with you.