• Question: what would happen if you jump of a sky scraper would you turn into a pancake or explode or what

    Asked by cosmo to Hannah, Ian, Jono, Mark on 26 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Ian Wilson

      Ian Wilson answered on 26 Jun 2013:

      Hey cosmo,

      Haha lovely question! The answer is….neither!

      You’d make a fairly impressive ‘splat’ noise, but you wouldn’t explode or flatten completely. You would stay mostly human shaped but probably all of your bones would break and your organs would burst inside of you. Basically, you be one awful mess but you’d still look human!

      Someone a few years ago was skydiving and their parachute didn’t open and they fell to the ground…but they survived! It was a 1 in a million chance – every bone in their body was broken but they stayed alive. And that was falling from the height of at least 5 skyscrapers!

      Cheers,

      Ian

    • Photo: Hannah Brotherton

      Hannah Brotherton answered on 26 Jun 2013:

      Hi cosmo,
      You wouldn’t explode, you would make a massive thud and splat out.

      But most of this and why we hurt ourselves and bruise is caused by us tensing our bodies. because we are scared it is going to hurt. If we tense our body, all the blood goes to our muscles, away from our organs. So we are hard – tense now and feel how hard you body is!
      But if we relaxed our bodies (I know that’s pretty hard if you were falling from the sky lol ), then we would be soft and our muscles would be relaxed and we wouldn’t break so many bones or make such a thud.

      So imagine this……
      you have a hot water bottle

      One hot water bottle is filled to the brink with water (this is us when we tense our muscles) – all hard and tough with no air in it.If you drop it all the water will splat out.

      But if you have another hot water bottle with less water , and some air in it (this is us relaxed), then when we drop it, the water can move freely and doesn’t burst out of the sides.

      But if you did try and relax when jumping out of a sky scraper, you would probably still die, just not as hard

      Best thing is: Dont jump or get a parachute 😛

      BUT a guy fell from an airplane and landed in the Sahara desert and LIVED! this is because he got the angle of his body just right and he ended up sliding on the ground rather than going splat – but it helps when the floor is made up of tiny little particles rather than a concrete floor 😀

    • Photo: Jono Bone

      Jono Bone answered on 27 Jun 2013:

      Hi Cosmo,
      You would essentially go splat on the pavement. Although I’ve never seen this my self, I Imagen you would end up a sort of pancake shape!
      Great question!!
      Jono

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