If you are in a falling elevator can you survive by jumping up at the last moment?
601686
Check out the Popular Mechanics article linked below, "How To Survive In A Plummeting Elevator".
702303
Well, you would not make it through because you would die in the middle from the heat.\n\nAssuming that there was no heat to burn you, in that case you would get stuck in the middle because of gravitational force.\n\nAssuming there was no gravity, you would probably not be able to make it through because it would be too exhausting.\n\nAssuming that there is nothing that could prevent you from doing it, either physical or geographical, then you would come out of the hole right side up.
10866
Get on an elevator. Press the "down" button. The moment it starts to go down, jump up. You'll be in free fall (at least for a moment) which will simulate zero gravity. There you go - absolutely free.
399417
u fall down the stairs but if u fell up you'd go up the stairs faster
954256
Most fires on the 30th floor would be accessed by the elevator to the 28th or 29th floor.  But if we had to hoof it, I couldn't see it taking any more than 10min.
434972
No sir you would not be able to take an infinite breath. Your body is constantly producing CO2 so in a few minutes your magical breath of pure oxygen would run dangerously (due to exchange of gases) low and you will pass out, lapse in to a comma, and proceed to die. Its a true story.
441653
Many people don't realize how extremely tall these towers are...and by looking at it, you would probably say "I would never jump from there."\n\nBut in this situation you would rather die quickly and enter heaven as soon as possible, rather than burning in a living hell before you enter heaven.\n\n200 people fell to their deaths, and this wasn't suicide...it was murder committed by terrorists who enjoy murdering and torturing people.\n\nAnd while these people hit the ground, they were also caught by angels and arrived at a better place.\n\nThe sight of people jumping also saved people in the south tower. Employees at the south tower saw the people at the north tower jump...and that sight brought them to the conclusion that they must leave immediately.\n\nSo while lives were taken, lives were spared...\n\nSo, almost anyone would probably jump.
285890
on an elevator at my fiances work... the best part? THERE WAS ONLY 2 FLOORS. HAHA... WHEN THE DOOR WAS ABOUT TO OPEN HE KEPT PRESSING FLOOR #1 THEN FLOOR #2, IT WAS KINDA SCARING BUT SO INTENSE
960647
Okay so if you are falling towards the ground the problem is that you are going to have a lot of speed when you hit the ground and that's not a good thing at all.  It is true that you can use your legs to push yourself upwards.  If you could push yourself upwards enough you could reduce your velocity towards the ground or even cancel it out!  So the question is how much upwards velocity can you give yourself by jumping.\n\nSo a little background first.  Say a slingshot fires a ball at 50 m/s.  If you were falling straight down towards the ground at 40 m/s and you shot the ball straight up it would have a velocity of 10 m/s upwards.  How did I get that? I got it because you can just add and subtract velocities like that if they are in the exact same direction (or exactly opposite direction).  I walk left at 5m/s along the ground and throw a ball same way at 6m/s it is then going left at 5ms+6m/s.  Or if I threw it right at 6m/s while walking left it would start with a velocity of (5m/s-6m/s) left which is -1m/s left (that's the exact same thing as 1m/s right).\n\nYou can figure out how much upwards velocity you can give yourself by jumping using this formula:\n\nvf²=vi²+2ad\n\nvf = final velocity, vi = initial velocity, a=acceleration, d=distance\n\nImagine you're standing on the ground while we think about this for a second and that you are great at jumping and you can jump 1 meter upwards.  You start with some velocity vi from your jump and have 0 velocity when you hit the peak of your jump at 1 meter in the air.\n\n0=vi²+2(9.8)(1)\n\nvi=4.4m/s\n\nSo if you are a strong jumper you can give yourself an upwards velocity of 4.4m/s.\n\nNow finally back to the elevator, if you and the elevator fell from a 5th floor at about 15m height you would be going down pretty quickly, almost 20m/s before you hit the ground.\n\nNow if you could jump upwards JUST before hitting the ground you might at best get almost 4.4m/s of upwards velocity and you could subtract that from your downards velocity of 20m/s.  That gives about 15m/s and that is a big problem to hit the ground at that speed.\n\nUnfortunately you wouldn't even do that well because not all of the force you applied to jump upwards would go into accelerating you upwards.  Some of it would go into pushing the elevator downwards even faster so you would gain even less upwards velocity.\n\nThe short answer is you could reduce your speed a little bit but not nearly enough to stop yourself from landing way too hard.
156452
My cat recently slide off the car and landed on her side(not her feet) and made an awful thud. then walked away. Since she is so light, I think she didn't hit as hard as I would have and it seemed she got another life.\nThere is a high rise syndrome also. Cats that jump/fall out of apartments survive better if they fall higher than 3 stories, than 2-3 stories. They get tired relax some and spread out. Their terminal velocity is lower and then they put their legs down for landing. There is a record cat with just a cracked tooth.\nI might believe in multiple lives if I saw a cat fall 5 stories and walk away.
475388
People have lived from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge --- however the majority have died trying. According to Wikipedia the GGB is 220 feet above the water. From this height you will either die from the fall or compress your spine when you land. Either way, its not a good thing.
39780
i know a joke about fart and burp...\n\na burp iz a fart that took the elavator..\n\nso to answer your very interesting question ....\n\ni think if u swallow a burp...that meens that the elevator broke down.\nin consequence: the farts ,that would have used the elevator if it wasn't ruined by u, would create a crisis , revolution in your body ...so that the bathroom would get to be the best place 2 stay for a few hours so that other people wouldn't kick u out because of the stink...\ndid u get my ideea...?:))
377140
You would die...DIE!!!!!11  Oops, I forgot to keep holding the shift button so the exclamation points turned to ones.  I like to explain what happened instead of backspacing.
1160752
The one thing that made the elevator or lift a possibility for comercial use was the invention by Mr. Otis of the mechanical break system that prevents the car from falling even when the cable is cut.  It basically drives a wedge against the wheels and the rails when the car starts to go down faster than it should. \n\nPower outages pose no threat since the car is counter balanced by a heavy counter weight and the motor and gears simply stop in position with no car movement during a power outage.\n\nThe biggest concern is, what happens if a cable snaps?  Mr. Otis toured the country demostrating his brake system by acutually getting in a car, having it raised and then he personally chopped through the rope suspending it.  Some cars will lurch and drop a couple of feet then stop and lurch again and will keep doing this until the car is finally stopped at the bottom of the shaft.  This kind of drop is really scary but no one has died from a falling elevator due to a cable failure as far as I can remember.
654062
kinetic energy is related to her actual velocity, this stays the same according to the problem. \n\nGravitational potential energy increases the farther you get away from the earth. This is going up as the elevator rises.\n\nSo, 4 is correct.
126417
Try the life ride. It's free, it's inescapable, and it certainly only ends with your death.\n\nBut hang on for the time being you're just going up. The fall itself will be spectacular.Make sure you release the bar, so that you can wave your hands up in the air, and wave them just like you don't care.\n\nThis can not be stressed enough: "the future is uncertain but the end is always clear."
1134115
Yes, you are harmed. You're not falling 10 feet from the door that you just 'jumped' out of. You've been falling since you left the cliff. The only difference is that when you die, it won't be among the ruins of a demolished house.\n\nBTW, you can't jump from the house in the first place. The house is falling and you are falling with it. Jumping requires standing. You and the house are in free-fall. You may be able to guide yourself along the walls using your hands, much like the astronauts do when in a zero-g environment. It's more likely though that you'll be screaming and soiling yourself.