Skip to main content

Extra Credit Blog

What would happen if everyone jumped at once?

The current human population on Earth is estimated to be about 7.6 billion people. The global average body mass for a human is 62kg (it sounds small because in America our average is 80.7kg, about 180 pounds). The humans will be jumping, giving themselves potential energy mgh at their max height (about 0.5 meters for this analysis) and then that kinetic energy will be converted to kinetic energy that will be involved in the collision that hits the Earth. If a 62kg person accelerates toward the Earth at 9.8m/s^2 for 0.5 meters, mgh can be used to calculate the KE on impact.


m1 is the mass of all of the humans on Earth. This can be estimated to 7.6B*62= 471,200,000,000kg. If you assume that all of the humans on Earth jump 0.5 meters and use mgh to calculate the KE, then 235,600,000,000J=KE. 235.6GJ is an immense amount of energy, but this energy is facing a mass of 5.972 × 10^24 kg.

 If you consider "everyone jumping at once" to be an inelastic collision in which all of the kinetic energy of the humans is transferred to the Earth, we can model the system as

m1*v1=(m1+m2)v2

m1 is 471,200,000,000. 
0.5=1/2*9.8*t^2
0.5/4.9=t^2
t=0.1020408163 sec
vf=at, 9.8x0.10204= 0.999m/s

471,200,000,000*0.999=(471,200,000,000+5.972 × 10^24)v2
~(1/5.972 × 10^24)m/s.

For such a collision with numbers that are so unmatched a vf is meaningless, it is difficult to retain any information from this. 1 over the mass of the Earth in kg is an absurdly small number and proves that the Earth would move, but only a very small distance. In physics, we are accustomed to analyzing collisions that involve two masses of relatively comparable size. This results in a meaningful Vf that is logical. Because the mass of all of the people on Earth is only 0.000000000000789% (total human mass divided by earth mass equals 7.890154052x10^-14) it is difficult to retain useful information from this data.

I did find a video on this subject by one of my favorite YouTube channels on this topic that says if everyone jumped at once, the Earth would move, for an instant, about the distance of 1/100th of the width of a single hydrogen atom. 

https://youtu.be/jHbyQ_AQP8c
The answer is at about 2min in.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Physics of Black Holes...Or Lack Thereof

Isabella Jacavone To comprehend how the universe works, we must dwell into the most basic building blocks of existence; matter, energy, space, and time. NASA's  Physics of the Cosmos program involves cosmology, astrophysics, and fundamental physics intended to answer questions about the elusiveness of complex concepts such as black holes, neutron stars, dark energy, and gravitational waves. In this blog post, I'd like to elaborate on a subject that is very intriguing  to me; Black holes. And more specifically, what would happen if we got near one. A black hole is anything but a hole, but rather an immense amount of matter compacted into an extremely small area. A black hole is caused when, hypothetically, a star four times more massive than our sun collapses into a sphere no bigger than 600 square km. To put that in perspective, that's about the size of New York City. B lack holes were predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity, which showed that when a...

Aerodynamics of a Golf Ball

One may wonder how a small golf ball can travel at incredibly high speeds for such long distances.  While the swing of the club is a major component, the structure of the golf ball is quite important.  Unlike a baseball or tennis ball, a golf ball has dimples all over it (usually 336 dimples).  These dimples allow the golf ball to travel without facing much air resistance.  This diagram shows how air travels around the golf ball. The dimples on the golf ball also prevent drag that would occur in the wake region, resulting in further distance.  Also due to the contact with the club during the swing, the golf ball has backspin during its entire flight.  This diagram shows the motion of the golf ball mid flight with the lift force of F. There are hundreds of different types of golf balls that a player can choose.  Some show little affect to a player's game while others can alter their performance completely.  Personally, I prefer Callaway Supers...

What Would Happen if Everyone in the World Jumped at Once?

Hypothetical and far out questions are what create great physicists and allow for us to discover and test things that have never been thought of before. Even as kids, we let our minds wander and ask questions that we never knew could be proved or disproved by physics. One question that I, as a young questioning child, and many other highly regarded physicists ask is simple; what would happen if every single person got together and jumped at once? This situation is completely unlikely to ever happen, so the only way we could ever know what would happen is through physics. Okay, so lets set the scene. Everyone, all 7 billion people, could fit into an area the size of Rhode Island, so lets assume that everyone did  travel to the smallest state in the US.  Finally, in unison, all 7 billion people jump. The push against the earth doesn't affect the earth at all, considering the Earth outweighs everyone by a factor of a mere 10 trillion. Even if the Earth were rigid and responde...