Skip to content

What If Everyone on Earth Jumped at the Same Time?

Sign up for the Smarter Faster newsletter
A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people
Fields marked with an * are required

The BBC tried to organize a seismic event by having 50,000 people in one place jump at the same time. A kilometer away it registered as a .6 on the Richter scale, according to the video below by Vsauce.


What would happen if everyone on Earth jumped at exactly the same time in the same place? Would it cause an earthquake or knock earth off of its axis?

Image credit: Jorge Lascar/Flickr

Sign up for the Smarter Faster newsletter
A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people
Fields marked with an <span class="ninja-forms-req-symbol">*</span> are required

Related
“Asking the question of, “Where did the entire universe come from?” is no longer a question for poets and theologians and philosophers. This is a question for scientists, and we have some amazing scientific answers to this question.”
02:18:31 min
with

Up Next
It’s convenient that TV shows are 30 minutes long: you can watch one more before cleaning the kitchen after dinner. Just one more. Soon, it’s late, and you decide to […]