Ok, this is random... but ive always wondered...

Question

Say your in the aisle of a bus going 40 miles an hour and you jump straight up. Why don't you go backwards? Wouldn't the movement of the bus force you to land further back?

Answer 1

because your in the bus not on top of it

Answer 2

I believe its called inertia. maybe

Answer 3

the bus is pushing you 40 miles an hour. technically you SHOULD land furhter back; although you may not seem to. this is because most of the time when people jump 'straigt up' they are actually jumping forward. if they truly jumed straight up it would feel like they are jumping backwards. another factor is there is also no wind resistance on the bus. if you jumped off the moving bus you would slow down at a much faster rate.

Answer 4

no because when ur on the bus floor ur going its speed so if u jump forward u are going faster than the bus so when the bus goes forward u stay where u are because of u slow down and stay where u are and fall before u loose all ur speed of jumping forward  

Answer 5

Unless the bus is accelerating, you are moving at the same speed as the bus. The air isnt pushing back against you, which means you experience no forces that would slow you down. While inside the bus you look like you jump straight up and down, to someone standing still on the street, you jump, make an arc and then land (while still moving with the bus). If the bus is accelerating, then you would move backwards as the bus is going faster than you, but the bus would have to accelerate while you were in the air for this to happen. For example, when the bus stops, you feel yourself getting pushed forward right? Thats because your body wants to keep going forward while the bus is stopping, which is why you have to grab onto something until it does stop.

Answer 6

Have you ever actually tried this? Unless you have very good balance or are concentrating very hard you tend to lose your balance and you do move backwards--sort of. Say, there is probably a reason why we are supposed to sit down while the bus is in motion. Probably for one of the ones you are asking about.

Answer 7

Hey there. It's actually very simple. There's this thing called "inertia". This thing affects your body because it wants to stay in the same place. Confused? If you are on a bus floor, no seats, roof, walls, nothing, and it's going 40 miles an hour and it suddenly stops on the dime, you fall back when you are alert because your body tries to stop with the bus. There is also "momentum". If you are on the same bus floor, and the floor stops but you're not alert, you lunge forward because your body is still moving 40 miles per hour. Still, neither of this things are affecting you, and since you are traveling 40 miles per hour along with the bus, you could do back flips, twirls, dances, jumps, and even handstands!

Answer 8

youd be 40 mph with the bus cuz thats wat you jump fom so youd go up and forward at a little under 40 mph (youd slow down with air resistance)

Answer 9

your body is moving with the bus, therfore your body will stay in motion as  long as the bus is. So really if you jump straight up, your body moves forward involuntarily

Answer 10

An object in motion tends to stay in motion.  If you're going 40, and the bus is going 40 too, and you jump up, you're still going 40, as is the air inside the bus.

If however, you jump up, just as the bus starts a sharp turn, you'll probably land in the seat (or aisle) beside yours.

Answer 11

oh, this is sooo why i got a c in physics!  you are moving at the same rate as the bus.  if you jumped so high up in the air though that it took you a long time to come back down to the bus, you would land further "back" on the bus i believe.  there's got to be some kind of equation for this.

Answer 12

I think that your instinct is perfectly correct. It is the back of your seat that propelled you at 40 mph. Once you free yourself of any ambient force you are subject to nothing but gravity. You won't jump very high,and the bus isn't going very fast, so your original chair back is going to swat you in the butt, but not so hard as you'd notice.

Answer 13

I'm usually holding onto the backs of chairs, so I won't fall, so I wouldn't go anywhere.

Probably because the bus isn't moving fast enough for you to not automatically compensate.  What if the bus were going 60?

Answer 14

Moving at the same speed as the bus, even when you leap into the air, means you're still traveling that speed even though you are air borne.  

Answer 15

Newton's first law states "An object in motion tends to stay in motion and an object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted on by an outside force"

For example, when scoring a hockey goal, the hockey puck slides toward the open goal in a straight line because the ice it slides on is nearly frictionless. If you're lucky, the puck won't come into contact with the opposing goalie's stick, which would cause it to change its motion.



In everyday life, objects don't coast around effortlessly on ice. Most objects around you are subject to friction, so when you slide a coffee mug across your desk, it glides for a moment and then slows and comes to a stop (or spills over — don't try this one at home). That's not to say Newton's first law is invalid, just that friction provides a force to change the mug's motion to stop it.

What Newton's first law really says is that the only way to get something to change its motion is to use force. In other words, force is the cause of motion. It also says that an object in motion tends to stay in motion, which introduces the idea of inertia.

So, the object in question here is YOU on the bus, and YOU are in motion (at 40 mph) in the direction that the bus is traveling (we'll call this "forward").

Now, you jump "up" applying an additional force to YOU.

Let's review. YOU are an object in motion moving "forward" at 40mph who has just applied an upward force "jump"

By "jump"ing you are applying a force that will change your position first causing you to go up and then the opposing force gravity will pull you down. If this expeirment was in space with no gravity then you would just continue to fly up and we wouldn't be discussing where you were landing! But we're on earth and we do have to contend with the forces of gravity, so down you come. The question is this. While you were up were there any forces counteracting your "forward" movement?

Friction? Not really.

Gravity? Pulls down, not back.

Streached bungy chord attaching you to the back of the bus? Again, no.

So, nothing to slow you down, you continue at 40mph in a forward direction the same as the bus and land "right where you jumped from" (assuming the bus remains constant).

Now, if the bus had slowed or spead up at the exact instant that your feet left the floor you would either have appeard to have jumped forward or backward, but since we're assuming it did not then you should be right back in the spot where your feet left the floor.

Make sense?

Answer 16

If you are on a bus that is moving 40 miles per hour, then you are moving 40 miles per hour. Jumping straight up doesn't affect the speed that you are still traveling at, since there is nothing to slow you down (no air that is pushing you to the back of the bus).  

Answer 17

because your going the same speed as the bus