• Question: What would happen if everyone on Earth got together in one place and jumped up at the same time?, just like a ballerina pulling her hands in speeds her up, would all the people falling back down speed up the Earth even by the slightest?

    Asked by tosty55 to Aggelos, Andrew, Eileen, Shane on 21 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Eileen Diskin

      Eileen Diskin answered on 21 Nov 2012:


      Want to try it? 1………2………..3……..GO!!!!

      Seemingly, it wouldn’t actually do anything. If we put everyone into one space, we’d fill up a space about the size of Los Angeles. And what would happen if we jumped? Probably not too much. The earth would only move about .01 the width of a hydrogen atom. And thats very very small!

      Any movement we’d give to the earth is reallllllllllly tiny. Mostly because the Earth’s mass is about ten TRILLION times bigger than the mass of humans.

      Heres a video that explains it all really really well:

      http://io9.com/5937853/what-would-happen-if-everyone-on-earth-jumped-at-exactly-the-same-time

    • Photo: Andrew Jackson

      Andrew Jackson answered on 21 Nov 2012:


      great answer from eileen!

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