• Question: is it possible to jump off the empire state building and survive with no injuries??!!!!!

    Asked by samuelharrison to Alex, Amy, Andy, Georgia, Ollie on 18 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Georgia Campbell

      Georgia Campbell answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      I don’t think there’s a way to test that without risking killing someone? I wouldn’t want to try it to find out – I think you’d be very hurt even if it didn’t kill you though!

    • Photo: Amy Reeve

      Amy Reeve answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Hi samuel,

      i think it would be pretty impossible for a human to survive this fall and i certainly wouldn’t want to test it out or test it on any animals 🙁 If you were base jumping from the top then i think you would be injury free though! 🙂

    • Photo: Ollie Russell

      Ollie Russell answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      If you chucked a cat off the empire state building it would survive. The speed at which you fall is determined by the surface area of the body. this speed is called terminal velocity… the maximum speed that you can fall. For a human this is about 200mph, so hitting the floor at this speed will probably vaopourise you. however, for a cat this is about 80mph, and because cats are designed to cushion themselves by bending their legs on impact, they can survive this fall.

    • Photo: Andy MacLeod

      Andy MacLeod answered on 18 Jun 2011:

      Yes. If you had a parachute. Or a bungee rope to pull you back up. Or a great big bouncy castle at the bottom. 😀

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