Puzzle For All Smart Physicists

[hazelm]

And everybody else.

 

A man fell out of a twenty-story building and lived to tell about it.  How did he do that?"

 

hazel m

[Vmedvil2]

There also was a guy that jump off the 109th story of the world trade center during the Terrorist attack on it and survived. I would say that probably the legs took most of the force and acted like a pillow as their legs broke or shattered it caused most of the force to be directed away from their body.

Edited January 21, 2020 by VictorMedvil

[hazelm]

There also was a guy that jump off the 109th story of the world trade center during the Terrorist attack on it and survived. I would say that probably the legs took most of the force and acted like a pillow as their legs broke or shattered it caused most of the force to be directed away from their body.

Nice try, Victor, but nope!

[Vmedvil2]

Nice try, Victor, but nope!

Well, I dunno why don't you just tell us.

[Mutex]

Because he did not sustain injuries bad enough to kill him, or to stop him from talking. Something caused him to be buffered such that he did not undergo a fatal decelleration. 

[GAHD]

There's a few cases like that. From my thoughts on it they must have landed on a really hard surface that had enough variance in it's speed of sound to rebound the shock in a destructive pattern. That's to say the shock was really fast instead of being spread out over more than a quarter second or so.

Humans can stand instantaneous deceleration(or acceleration) of really high levels with "minor injury" but any significantly prolonged forces overcome the natural springiness of tissue and tear it. IIRC the guy who survived parachute failure landed on asphalt, on his back. That right there would minimize the thickness of the body and reduce the travel time of the shockwave(s) though the flesh, and depending on the points of contact and their offset would probably minimize constructive interference reinforcing the wave('s/s') amplitude(s). The variable SOS between mixed aggregate and binders on that kind of surface would further muddy the reflections.

Basically, as long as there's room to stretch enough, humans tend to "bounce" rather than "splat" from tissue elasticity. Still probably got some aneurysms and whatnot that would need to be watched.

[OceanBreeze]

And everybody else.

 

A man fell out of a twenty-story building and lived to tell about it.  How did he do that?"

 

hazel m

 

 

HaHa this is funny.

 

This only says he fell out of a 20 story building; it doesn't say what floor he was on

[Mutex]

HaHa this is funny.

 

This only says he fell out of a 20 story building; it doesn't say what floor he was on

 

Ding Ding, we've found our smart physicist... Sure falling out of a ground floor window makes a lot of sense.. 

[Dubbelosix]

And everybody else.

 

A man fell out of a twenty-story building and lived to tell about it. How did he do that?"

 

hazel m

There have been many instances of people falling from great heights and surviving. One current theory is that a gust of wind can prevent a person from being mortally wounded. Some parachutes for instance have not activated properly and a few rare ones have survived. Edited January 22, 2020 by Dubbelosix

[hazelm]

HaHa this is funny.

 

This only says he fell out of a 20 story building; it doesn't say what floor he was on

Good thinking, Ocean Breeze.    Simplicity is genius.    

[ValerMore]

Hmmm, I would guess that he fell on a huge car like a truck. A similar story happened to my uncle Jeff, he accidentally fell from the 7th floor while drunk and landed on the back of a truck. When you're drunk, the pain is dulled, so it helps to avoid pain shock. What's the awful mystery? I prefer sudoku or online jigsaw puzzles, haha. It's great that the man survived such a shock, and how he did it is no longer important. I only want to solve difficult but good old-fashioned puzzles.

Edited January 20, 2022 by ValerMore