The experiment that revealed what would happen if everyone on Earth jumped at the same time.

The long-standing curiosity about what would happen if everyone on Earth jumped at the same time has intrigued many. Would the Earth bounce back? Would it wobble? This hypothetical question has led to various hypotheses, but has never been tested in practice on a global scale. However, a physicist’s experiment has given a definitive answer.

Greg Foot, a science journalist and presenter, conducted an experiment for the BBC’s Earth Lab programme to explore this idea. Using a group of 50,000 people at the Reading Festival, Foot tried to simulate the effects of mass jumping. Participants jumped simultaneously and the resulting movement was measured from a distance of one mile.

In a video recording the experiment, Foote explains: “Then, with a little bit of mathematical precision, I could zoom in and see what would happen if everyone jumped around the Earth at the same time and whether that would change the speed of the Earth’s rotation.” His results showed that while a mass jump could cause a small displacement, it would be an almost imperceptible movement.

To understand the potential impact, Foote looked at how earthquakes affect the Earth’s rotation. For example, the 2011 earthquake in Japan sped up the Earth’s rotation, shortening our days by 1.8 microseconds. This comparison shows that large seismic events can change the planet’s rotation, but such events are much more powerful than a global jump.

The Reading Festival experiment produced a 0.6 magnitude earthquake. “Earthquakes don’t affect the rotation of the planet until they reach at least an eight, so it would take seven million times the number of people living on the planet now,” Foote concluded. “So the urban legend is completely untrue.”

Physicist Rhett Allen also analyzed whether a global jump could have significant effects on the Earth, even without changing its rotation. By calculating the total weight of all people relative to the mass of the Earth, Allen calculated that if everyone jumped 0.3 meters in exactly the same place at the same time, the Earth would move only one centimeter of the radius of a hydrogen atom.

In conclusion, while the idea of ​​a global leap that would have a significant impact on the Earth is exciting, scientific evidence dispels this myth. The combined mass and power of humanity is not enough to significantly affect the motion or rotation of our planet.

Gazeta.gr

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