Here is one of those young-age questions you end up missing - usually because they seem incredibly naive or even beasts. However, with a little scientific diligence, it is certainly possible to answer that famous question - "What if we all jumped at the same time?" - without looking like a seven year old exercising creativity.

Well, as the VSauce program pointed out, something would surely happen. But not much. To consider the question, however, it is interesting to recall some basic physical concepts - rotation, for example.

The more mass in the center, the faster it is.

One of the physical concepts that should serve to give a satisfactory answer to the bouncing question posed here is rotational motion. In fact, as the program said, this is only one point: the more the mass of an object is concentrated in the center, the greater the speed of rotation.

And here among us, you don't even have to climb the stars and planets to get a clear example of this idea. Just think of a skater. In the traditional spinning movement around the body, the athlete uses his arms and legs to control the speed: the closer to the axis of rotation (attached to the body, for example), the faster the rotation will be, with the opposite being true. the limbs extended outwards.

Well, "and what does it have to do with my jump over the earth?" Basically, you can change the earth's rotation speed simply by squatting - although the speed difference is so tiny that it can even be completely neglected. But let's move on.

Days 0.0000018 second shorter

From the above concept, it becomes quite understandable that the mass redistribution caused by, for example, earthquakes is perfectly capable of altering the earth's rotation. As VSauce recalled, the 2011 earthquake in Japan was able to make days 0.0000018 seconds shorter.

Global movement of tectonic plates. Image source: Reproduction / Wikimedia Commons

However, if it were to have the same effect by jumping over the planet's surface, it would have required the global population to be at least seven million times larger than the present - not even a birth promotion campaign in countries like China and India could deal with it in a timely manner, of course.

7 billion people shoulder to shoulder

Ok, but a concentrated jump could still have some effect. Assuming it was possible to group all the people of the earth, shoulder to shoulder, into a single piece of land - which would occupy roughly the space of the city of Los Angeles (Californian, USA) - and if they all jumped simultaneously at a distance of 30 centimeters ... The earth would move only a hundredth the width of a hydrogen atom in space.

Image source: Reproduction / Wikimedia Commons

As for the rotation? Possibly there would be no residual effect. In other words, this apotheotic leap would not permanently alter the spin of the planet, as everything would return to normal once the feat was completed. Yeah, it's science "destroying" yet another childhood fantasy - along with that desire to fly.

* Originally posted 02/02/2014.

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