Possibility to survive a building jump?

[LabRat1]

So if a person were to jump of a building of some considerable height (say 10 stories) but on a table, and he jumps of the table before impact, would he survive or not. I feel he wouldn't, but i wanted your opinion.

 

PS: Had no clue where to post this and hence here!

[DrP]

Problem is...  when he jumps off the table it will just push the table down. The table legs, not being on the ground, wont push back on him to give him the vertical jump you are proposing. So the table will just hit the ground faster. It might slow him fractionally, but not enough I reckon.  You could do the actual maths of it pretty easily to show this.

[dimreepr]

13 minutes ago, LabRat1 said:

So if a person were to jump of a building of some considerable height (say 10 stories) but on a table, and he jumps of the table before impact, would he survive or not. I feel he wouldn't, but i wanted your opinion.

 

PS: Had no clue where to post this and hence here!

It's the old cartoon scenario, bugs bunny casually steps of the falling lift and eats a carrot.

The lift/table in freefall is travelling at 120 MPH(let's say) not only can you not jump at anything like that speed, you don't have anything solid to jump off, so you will hit the ground at that speed.

Edited July 25, 2017 by dimreepr

[DrP]

Are you following me about today Dim?

You are right...  even if the table could push back you still couldn't jump hard enough. That's why I suggested doing the maths of it....  if he can't visualise it then maybe calculating it would help him.

[dimreepr]

1 minute ago, DrP said:

Are you following me about today Dim?

 

  yes but don't tell, stalking's illegal...

[Damateur]

If someone were to jump off a building with a table, they'd have a fractionally better chance of surviving if they jumped with the table above their head holding onto the legs trying to use it as a very crude parachute. Mythbusters examined the idea with sheets of plywood rather than a table and IIRC they determined there would be very little reduction of speed.

[J.C.MacSwell]

On 8/3/2017 at 7:01 PM, Damateur said:

If someone were to jump off a building with a table, they'd have a fractionally better chance of surviving if they jumped with the table above their head holding onto the legs trying to use it as a very crude parachute. Mythbusters examined the idea with sheets of plywood rather than a table and IIRC they determined there would be very little reduction of speed.

If you could, somehow, control the sheet to get lift without full stall you would be going pretty fast but eventually approaching the ground at an angle. Last second you pull up hard, killing what speed you can and should hit the ground "running"..."running" being a euphemism for tumbling rapidly to your demise...but at least you tried.

[Lord Antares]

On 7/25/2017 at 5:16 PM, DrP said:

Problem is...  when he jumps off the table it will just push the table down. The table legs, not being on the ground, wont push back on him to give him the vertical jump you are proposing. So the table will just hit the ground faster. It might slow him fractionally, but not enough I reckon.  You could do the actual maths of it pretty easily to show this.

Isn't it that you can't jump at all, rather than ''not jump very high''?

You are freefalling and so is the table. You are technically not even standing on the table. It's as if the table wasn't there. You'd die just the same.

[Area54]

If you lie flat on the table and engage the serendipity switch on your mobile phone so that the table lands in a precisely horizontal attitude, then the collapse of the legs will provide a decceleration that will significantly reduce the magnitude of the impact. (Don't try this at home!)

[dimreepr]

1 hour ago, Area54 said:

If you lie flat on the table and engage the serendipity switch on your mobile phone so that the table lands in a precisely horizontal attitude, then the collapse of the legs will provide a decceleration that will significantly reduce the magnitude of the impact. (Don't try this at home!)

Stand up man, and ride it like a surfboard, then throw away the phone and rely on the force to steer it to the nearest hedge. 

[DrP]

34 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Stand up man, and ride it like a surfboard, then ..... steer it to the nearest hedge. 

If ever you find yourself in that situation then this HAS to worth a try surely. If it works you'd be a superstar... if it doesn't then at least you go out with a ride.

13 hours ago, Lord Antares said:

Isn't it that you can't jump at all, rather than ''not jump very high''?

You are freefalling and so is the table. You are technically not even standing on the table. It's as if the table wasn't there. You'd die just the same.

It's kinda what I was getting at. :-D it clearly won't work....   Now, if you just stepped off at the right moment just before impact... but as DImreepr has already said - you need to be a cartoon rabbit for it to work.

Edited September 14, 2017 by DrP

[dimreepr]

9 minutes ago, DrP said:

If ever you find yourself in that situation then this HAS to worth a try surely. If it works you'd be a superstar... if it doesn't then at least you go out with a ride.

 

We should all take our tables down to the local vertical wind tunnel and practise for the inevitable . 

So in answer to the OP yes it might be possible, disclaimer acknowledging the possibility is by no means a suggestion. 

[Itoero]

On ‎25‎-‎7‎-‎2017 at 5:12 PM, LabRat1 said:

So if a person were to jump of a building of some considerable height (say 10 stories) but on a table, and he jumps of the table before impact, would he survive or not. I feel he wouldn't, but i wanted your opinion.

 

PS: Had no clue where to post this and hence here!

If the table is next to a deep enough pool or the table is on a floating device on a deep pool then he might survive. By jumping of the table before impact, you simply postpone the moment of impact.(conservation of energy)

Edited September 16, 2017 by Itoero

[Lord Antares]

On 9/14/2017 at 2:43 PM, DrP said:

It's kinda what I was getting at. :-D it clearly won't work....   Now, if you just stepped off at the right moment just before impact... but as DImreepr has already said - you need to be a cartoon rabbit for it to work.

Stepping off the table won't do anything. You are still falling with the same speed as if the table wasn't there. You'd still die just the same.

[Itoero]

If you don't have acces to something that breaks your fall (snow, water...) then I think the only way he can survive is buy doing a roll....to absorb the impact. If he is fast enough to jump of the table before impact then I suppose he's fast enough to apply a perfect roll which absorbs the impact.

[dimreepr]

5 minutes ago, Itoero said:

If you don't have acces to something that breaks your fall (snow, water...) then I think the only way he can survive is buy doing a roll....to absorb the impact. If he is fast enough to jump of the table before impact then I suppose he's fast enough to apply a perfect roll which absorbs the impact.

There is no table to jump off and so his ability to roll, however fast, is immaterial.

[Itoero]

21 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

There is no table to jump off and so his ability to roll, however fast, is immaterial.

LabRat1 says "he jumps of the table before impact" but according to you there is no table to jump off????????? You can of course not transfer the complete momentum from the table on the floor, but you can transfer most of it when you are extremely fast. In free-running people have a good technique in which they roll to absorb the impact from a high jump. His ability to roll is not immaterial, it's the only way he can survive such a jump.

Edited September 18, 2017 by Itoero

[dimreepr]

5 minutes ago, Itoero said:

LabRat1 says "he jumps of the table before impact" but according to you there is no table to jump off????????? You can of course not transfer the complete momentum from the table on the floor, but you can transfer most of it when you are extremely fast.

My point is the table is irrelevant because it's also in freefall so it wouldn't present anything to jump off and so it also renders speed as irrelevant.  

Edited September 18, 2017 by dimreepr

[Itoero]

1 minute ago, dimreepr said:

My point is the table is irrelevant because it's also in freefall so it wouldn't present anything to jump off and so it also renders speed as irrelevant.  

Why do you think the table is in free-fall?

[dimreepr]

Because it's falling freely.

[DrKrettin]

4 hours ago, Lord Antares said:

Stepping off the table won't do anything. You are still falling with the same speed as if the table wasn't there. You'd still die just the same.

This is not correct. If you and the table are in free fall, if you give the table an impulse downwards, the table gives you an equal and opposite impulse upwards. This will reduce the downward speed, although it won't make any difference to the outcome.

[Itoero]

The table is not in freefall, he jumps of a building, on a table and jumps of the table before impact(from jumping). Where did you read the table is in freefall?

2 minutes ago, DrKrettin said:

This is not correct. If you and the table are in free fall, if you give the table an impulse downwards, the table gives you an equal and opposite impulse upwards. This will reduce the downward speed, although it won't make any difference to the outcome.

Why do people think the table is in freefall?

[dimreepr]

1 minute ago, Itoero said:

The table is not in freefall, he jumps of a building, on a table and jumps of the table before impact(from jumping). Where did you read the table is in freefall?

Where did you read it's floating? 

[DrKrettin]

3 minutes ago, Itoero said:

The table is not in freefall, he jumps of a building, on a table and jumps of the table before impact(from jumping). Where did you read the table is in freefall?

Why do people think the table is in freefall?

Because he jumps off the building on a table, so he and the table are in freefall, unless you want to consider the surfing properties of the table

[Itoero]

Just now, dimreepr said:

Where did you read it's floating? 

huh? I didn't say it's floating.