So how far would I have to fall before the speed of my descent broke the Sound Barrier?

I don′t know but you certainly win the Most Random Thought Awards for today

I wonder if it′s actually possible to break the sound barrier just by falling. Might have to try it

Distance doesn't matter, you would never reach the speed of sound. The aerodynamic drag will very quickly increase high enough to completely negate the acceleration effect of gravity. You will reach the so called terminal velocity.

Not possible on Earth, too thick athmosphere and too weak gravity.
Human's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_velocity is only 190 km/h, speed of sound is 1230 km/h.

Unless you jump from very high above the Earth, as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvbN-cWe0A0. Lower air pressure = lower drag, also temperature is lower, which means the speed of sound is lower. His peak falling speed was approx. 1357 km/h, that is Mach 1.25 in these conditions.

I stand corrected then. He did fall almost from space, so drag was low enough to achieve that.

I seem to recall the Grand Slam bomb was capable of breaking the sound barrier just by falling, though it was specially designed to do so. The human body is not, though.

Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Slam_%28bomb%29: says "near supersonic", which means "not supersonic".

If salt is made up of Sodium, an element that explodes in water, and chlorine, an element that is toxic, how come the ocean doesn't become an overwhelmingly large explosion of toxic mist that kills everyone?

I guess what I'm trying to say is: how come this planet supports life?

also, how come people and buildings don't rise up and fall down due to the moon's gravity? This sort of ties in to the former question.

Depending on the mass of something with the fixed speed of gravity, an object will reach a certain velocity point and won't fall any faster.


That's why the dropping a penny from a sky scraqer to kill someone is a myth. A penny won't go fast enough to kill anyone no matter how high it drops, just like a human won't break the speed of sound dropping by themselves.

Pure sodium is highly reactive, because it has a sole outer electron, which is loosely bound and just looking for something to react with. Pure chlorine is highly reactive, because it has an empty slot in its outer electron shell, just waiting to be filled (elementary chemistry, worth looking into). In salt, sodium has given its outer electron to chlorine, and the salt crystal is kept together by the electric attraction between the resulting charged sodium and chlorine ions. In other words, The elements are no longer highly reactive, because they have already reacted. Water is able to dissolve the ions from the salt crystal, but they still retain their charges, and are not as reactive as the original pure elements.

And for your information: salt is indeed a deadly toxin in anything but very small quantities, and excess salt in all our processed food could well be the single biggest killer these days. Just start eating a steady diet of salty junk food, hamburgers, and fries, and such, and see how long you survive. Although fish in the sea have developed mechanisms for getting rid of excess salt, humans and mammals have evolved in an environment where salt is a rarity, and they cannot properly deal with an excess. Even sea mammals like whales or dolphins cannot drink sea water, but have to get their "drinking" water from eating fish or other sea food.

They do, to an extent, as does the pavement, the bedrock, and the surrounding lawn, you just have not observed them keenly enough.

And yet animals, including humans, can not live without any salt at all. Some herbivores, like deer actually have to lick rocks to get salt since they don't get any (or enough?) from their food.

I think Sheogorath has been playing around with the community discussion forum again!

Wait, what? Are you SURPRISED a thread went off-topic?

Exactly why it is experienced as tasting good. Mammals and humans have evolved to make use of whatever rare sources of salt they can discover, as they need some. Unfortunately, that makes it so difficult for us humans to decline a super-sized double portion of extra fries.

P.S.
The old falling discussion was boring already, as is now the salt and gravity one.

Sheogorath should wave the Wabbajack once again. I suggest pointing it at Bethesda.net.

How about a classic?


A plane is on a giant treadmill runway which exactly matches the speed of the plane. Will the plane take off?

Oh I got one! How fast does an escalater need to be moving for a person to fall perpetually?

It would need to keep accelerating at 9.8 m/s^2 perpetually to maintain a "zero g" environment for the occupant. As long as the air inside is sealed off from the outside the occupant will never reach terminal velocity due to no air resistance. (This assumes the elevator is immune to air resistance/terminal velocity.)


Edit: my bad, thought you meant elevator. No idea on the escalator lol, you have to account for friction and such for someone falling down an upwards moving escalator.

Assuming there is no air resistance, and using the formula V=root of (2GH+Vo^2) where V is the speed of sound= 340.29m/s, G=9.8m/s^2 and Vo=0 you end up with about 5,908 meters I believe. Which would also only be about 34.72 seconds. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Ah this makes sense.

A sonic boom looks like it would really knack a human body...

But when Baumgartner exceeded Mach 1... he did so without atmospheric resistance... and a Sonic Boom is created by the pressure exerted on the air... that in his case... was not there (and why he didn't create one himself)

You guys are so good.

Haha I have never considered how difficult it would be to get onto said runway! Also i think there is a chance the wheels would take significant damage due to going too fast. For instance, on an Airbus 318/319/320/321 the maximum tyre speed is 195kts, but typical take off speed would be about 145kts, meaning a relative ground speed of 290kts, so 95kts, or 110mph, over the maximum tyre speed. Maybe it would get airborne but I'm not sure I would want it to!