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Do you move if you jump inside an aeroplane?

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Paul87 | 23:40 Mon 05th Sep 2005 | How it Works
24 Answers

I asked a few people this but no one knows the answer,

If you were standing in a flying aeroplane, and jumped on the spot will you have moved from your original jump spot?

Anyone help?

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No because your jump is the combination of your vertical effort and your original forward speed, thus as you leap up you also travel forward at the velocity imparted to you by the plane.  As the plane is travelling at that velocity too you land in the same place.
You'll come back down on the same spot.  Look at it this way... when you walk along flipping a coin or throwing a ball into the air, the ball or other object comes down into your hand as you've taken a few steps. If you suddenly stopped walking in mid-toss, the item would come down in front of you a few feet or so.  The tossed item has the same momentum as your body... same thing in an aircraft (or other moving vehicle).  Of course, if you transposed your body's position on the Earth, you would have moved several hundreds of feet, depending on the speed of the aircraft across the ground (proper term is ground speed, unique, no?)
No, becuse you are being propelled forward by the plane at the same velocity as the plane.  As you are inside the plane along with stationary air, there is no wind reistance to slow you down, so you will land on exactly the same peice of carpet as you took off from (providing you jumped perpendicular to the plane's floor).
Synchronagraphy at work, Tim...
Aw! Don't change my word now, C. I've been calling such simultaneity 'synchrography' for years here on AnswerBank.
This is one of the main points of relativity, been asked here regularly, once you grasp that speed is a relative measure it's easy. I mean jump up and down on the ground you land in the same spot right? but the earth is still I hear you cry, wrong, it's doing 1000 at the equator just to rotate, it's doing 60000mph just to orbit the sun.
You wont come down in exactly the same spot as your forward momentum will reduce slightly due to no longer being in contact with the moving aircraft.  Of course wether this is noticeable will depend on wether you can jump up at exactly 90 deg to surface of the aicraft you are jumping off of and also how high you jump.  Altitude and pressurization levels of the aircraft will also have to be accounted for.  Hope this helps paul87.

For the Quizmonster... I frantically looked in back posts for your spelling... finding none immediately available, I winged it, hoping the essence would cover any spelling mistakes... you should consider registering the term with a trade mark...

For Jay70, I don't see where pressurization levels or altitude would have any affect on the point in question...

Consider weightless astranauts. Do they find themselves squashed against the rear of rhe capsule? Of course they don't.
galilean relativity.

in frame of reference: aeroplane, you won't move from your spot when you jump, as the plane is stationary if you're sat inside it.

in frame of reference: ground below, the guy jumping in the plane above you will move forward, at the same rate the plane is moving.

job done.
Basically if a cat runs out in front of the pilot and he has to do an emergency stop as you jumped, yes you would hit the cockpit door.
adydb, you have pointed out the difference between deceleration/ accelearation and constant velocity. I presume that the other answerers assumed a constant velocity.

On a less scientific note, why on earth would I want to jump up and down on an aeroplane?  

I'm so darned scared of flying I even think twice about going to the loo in case I upset the balance of the aircraft walking down the aisle !!!

Wendy, time was, seems like centuries ago now, that our passengers on tran-oceanic flights would actually have putting contests (when the were allowed to bring on a putter and golf ball).  They would putt down the aisle into a coffee cup from aft to forward on the aircraft.  The longest accurate putt was then computed with information from our front office to determine the length of the putt across the ground.  Seems to me, the longest (in a Boeing 727) was about 1.5 miles... Ah! the good old days!
adydb, i hope the cat is on the runway not in the sky. not sure which id be mroe worried about... the fact we had to do an emergency stop.. or whether there was a magical floating moggie in the air.
Analogy for the simple minded like me....goofy, too.
At 70 mph (western) I am sure the cylinders in the engine stay relatively aligned.

lol with WendyS ......

 

Had a laugh at that answer (not at you).....I was the same on a sightseeing tour on a train, above a ravine and everybody went to One side to look down, I was convinced if I stayed against the opposite side i'd prevent it tipping! 

(Sorry to go off subject)

so if the plane was about to crash ....and i opened the door
and jumped out ..........would i be saved , or have i been watching too many cartoons .................sorry ..
Too true, Clanad, (synchrochronograpy, isochronography or simultaneity????) what is Jay70 on about?
Or even synchronicity!

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