Jump or Stay?
I have this seemingly innocous habit of taking the ladder up to my attic window.
However, on this sunny summer afternoon things take an unpleasant turn. My ladder starts falling away from the wall just as I am about to step into my window. Would you recommend that I stay with the ladder and fall to the ground, or should I jump off the ladder?
However, on this sunny summer afternoon things take an unpleasant turn. My ladder starts falling away from the wall just as I am about to step into my window. Would you recommend that I stay with the ladder and fall to the ground, or should I jump off the ladder?
posted by littlecow at 3/16/2007 07:46:00 PM
5 Comments:
If you slide off the ladder fast enough, then the ladder will fall increasingly at a slower rate. And your velocity will also go down fast enough to reach the bottom with only a component up your body and you might only injure your knees :P
I guess you need to use your hands and legs to exert an upward force on the ladder to do the same. While I am no superman (or should it be spiderman. blimey! its probably a ladderman) to judge the feasibility of this mobile endeavor, it does seem very comical.
Further, if you rapidly decelerate at the end (when you are close to the ground), wouldn't you also be rapidly accelerating the ladder? In that case, you would also have to scurry away from this ladder which would be very bent on flooring you.
Not a cool solution, eh?!
The problem is still up for a practical and graceful solution matey...
First of all sorry for the delay....had an exam to take care of. :)
Coming back to the puzzle,is the friction sufficiently enough to prevent slipping of the ladder at any given condition? Or do we assume completely ideal conditions (exact opposite case) for simplicity's sake?
My thinking is, you if jump away from the ladder, you *might* be able to save the ladder (by making it go back toward the window to rest - momentum conservation), and may also be able to not fall straight down - perhaps helping yourself to a possible sliding landing (instead of an impactful knee-jerk landing).
To minimize your velocity at impact with the ground without actually abandoning the ladder, you might also want to consider rapidly climbing down the ladder. A marvel-comics-calibre ladderman should be able to close the gap between where he is at the beginning and the axis of rotation (pivot) before the ladder hits the ground.
I'm weakly against jumping off without at least trying to climb down as much as you can.
Also, buy insurance.
Equally irrelevantly, I'm appalled that no one is concerned about the health of the ladder!
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