What if we all jumped?

One of the greatest hypothetical questions is what would happen to Earth if everyone jumped at the same time.

First, it is virtually impossible to get everyone into the same space, very close together. But for the sake of this blog, it is. We could take all 7.4 billion people can squeeze into an area roughly 500 square miles. Rhode Island is roughly 1000 square miles so, we can give people some extra room to jump. In our hypothetical situation, all 7.4 billion people in the world come to Rhode Island.



T.F. Green airport is roughly in the middle of Rhode Island, so I decided to make it the epicenter of our massive jump. Also, as a plus, people don't have to go far to get home, even though there may be a few delays.

So far, all 7.4 billion people have come to Rhode Island and it is time for the jump. We jump and it seems like nothing happens.





According to a few of my sources, our force propelled the Earth away from us! The problem is that it only moved 1/100th the width of a single hydrogen atom.

If every human weighs roughly 80 kg (180 lbs.), we are going on the heavy side, that is 592 billion kg. Now lets compare that to the earth's mass. The earth weighs roughly 5.972 x 10^24 kg. Even though I went on the heavy side, the earth outweighs us, by a lot. The earth is roughly a trillion times the size of the human total mass on Rhode Island.

Our small mass compared the earth does relatively nothing in terms of moving it.

There are however other consequences.

First, there would be sound, probably the highest we've ever heard, that would shatter our eardrums.

Second, the ground would shake and could possibly cause an earthquake, this could be in the range of a 4-8 magnitude. That is a little bit less devastating than the earthquake that struck Indonesia, that killed over 100,000. So possibly, our little experiment would end up killing all of us.

This earthquake then would cause a tsunami, due to our proximity to the water. This could also be devastating with waves that could reach 100 ft.

If every human jumped at same time, in Rhode Island, we would not be able to move the earth that far. The consequences would perhaps kill us and cause massive damages.

In conclusion, I would not recommend this little experiment, we wouldn't be able to do much and instead probably end up killing us all!

Now if the earth happened to be flat...

Sources:

Ramsey, Lydia. “Here's What Would Happen If All 7 Billion People on Earth Jumped at the Exact Same Time.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 28 June 2016, www.businessinsider.com/what-happens-if-everyone-on-earth-jumps-at-the-same-time-2016-6.

Samuels, Delano. “Here's What Would Happen If Everyone on Earth Jumped at the Same Time.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 25 Apr. 2016, www.businessinsider.com/everyone-on-earth-jumps-at-the-same-time-2016-4.

“What Would Happen If Everyone Jumped at Once?” Mental Floss, 31 Jan. 2014, mentalfloss.com/article/54836/what-would-happen-if-everyone-jumped-once.

Wolchover, Natalie. “What If Everyone On Earth Jumped at Once?” LiveScience, Purch, 8 July 2011, www.livescience.com/33383-everyone-on-earth-jumping-at-once.html.