SM
Seismology

What if everyone jumped at once?

What if everyone jumped at once?

One person’s jump is practically negligible when compared to Earth’s internal forces. But, what if everyone jumped together at the same time? There are roughly 7 billion people on Earth, with a total weight of approximately 350 billion kilogram. What if we all jumped together at once? Are we able to shake the planet? Are we able to slow down time? Although this might sound like a fun global unity thing to do, one has to plan such a large-scale experiment more careful. This is because people are spread around the planet’s continents, hence if we all jumped in our normal locations, all the lift-off’s and impacts would cancel each other out! To avoid ending up with a zero net force on the Earth people will need to move to one place. Michael Stevens took this matter more seriously.

Watch his monologue explaining this cause: https://www.youtube.com/embed/jHbyQ_AQP8c

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Matthew Agius is a recent PhD graduate from the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies in Ireland and is now doing research at the University of Southampton (National Oceanography Centre). His research focuses on the dynamics of the lithosphere beneath Tibet, the Central Mediterranean, and the Pacific Ocean. Matthew’s role as a young scientist representative is to promote the efforts done by young researchers and to engage in discussions that concern seismology students. You can reach Matthew via e-mail at matthew.agius@soton.ac.uk.


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