Imagine legitimately falling, knowing there's a safety net but landing on one of the beams
this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2025
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Imagine illegitimately falling and being caught.
You would need to fall something like 1,800 feet (550 meters) to reach terminal velocity. You would be falling for half a minute. There are probably only like 50 or less buildings on earth which qualify.
That highly depends on the position of a human trying to reach terminal velocity in earth's lower atmosphere.
Your number is about right for a human body in horizontal position with spread arms and legs.
Diving headfirst with flattened arms and legs can lead to a terminal velocity of more than double of the above scenario. That requires a lot more fall distance.
Care to show your math on that? I found this reference for human drag coefficients when I did my math but it does not mention any spread positions.
Logically it's just fluid dynamics. If you dive into a pool, you'll go deeper quicker than if you belly flop. You can't really swim in air, but it's the same principle. No I don't have the math, you'd need a wind tunnel to measure each of the actual coefficients of drag, but something as simple as hand position could have a big impact on drag, which impacts both the acceleration and the terminal velocity.
So what I'm picturing is diving (like a swim dive) off the building, then rolling into a horizontal position after some time with the higher acceleration. It should at least lower the expected height you'd need to jump from to reach the horizontal terminal velocity.
That said, the height to reach diving terminal velocity would be even higher than your first number (unless the drag coefficient you used was actually for the vertical position).
Get a wing suit and the difference between a dive and glide is even more extreme (to the point where terminal velocity might need to be described as lift instead).
I leaned on https://discover.hubpages.com/education/Drag-Force-and-the-Terminal-Velocity-of-a-Human
and specifically:
https://images.saymedia-content.com/.image/c_limit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cq_auto:eco%2Cw_700/MTg2OTk1MDI4MDg4ODU4NTA4/drag-force-and-the-terminal-velocity-of-a-human.webp
I estimated the area of a body in vertical position as 1/4 of a body in horizontal position.
With C going from 1 to 0.7 and A going from whatever to 1/4 of that, this results in a terminal velocity increase of over factor 2.
Are these nets deaigned for accidental falls? Because I bet you I could jump farther than they extend.
Tragically, I think they only aim to be "do it somewhere else" nets. Because they introduce the threat of getting caught or partially caught and having to live with the embarrassment or wounds, respectively.
I believe they are required for worker dorms in China, news communities on ML or any building over 4 floors with windows in Russia. But yeah.. um.. totally for "accidental falls".
I would have thought Russia would have been dead against accidental fall net. It increases the likelihood that Putin would actually have to compete in an election.
Yeah he would have to accidentally tamper with the nets so they accidentally fail. Seems like a lot of extra work.
The corrupt contractors that install them ensure they won’t work, no tampering required.
Construction was probably contracted out to the same company that built the thousands of T-14 tanks we see operating in Ukraine.
Keep buying those iPhones people! Their supply chains have nets like these too.
I'd call them 10' wide, but let's say 8'. I'm looking at the 8' x 10' area rug under me and I couldn't jump either axis of the thing, even with a running jump. And no way in hell from a window.
We have these in Taiwan for different reasons. In Taipei, we have tons of foot traffic so these are designed to protect innocent bystanders.
Also in Taiwan, we have these nets on almost every escalator. It's not required by law to have these, but every business just have them to protect people falling down.
Do you not get a massive pigeon problem with them sitting on the nets and shiting on the people below?
We do have pigeons, but it's not as pervasive as NYC. We have more sparrows and large cranes.
In Taipei, we have tons of foot traffic so these are designed to protect innocent bystanders.
... From jumpers?!
There are some streets in Palestine that have/(had) nets but those were to block the trash being thrown down on top of them.
Taiwanese people tend to not want to inconvenience people even for suicide. I don't they would jump off a building and potentially hurt someone else.
I wonder if people just start using these as a IRL dark humor coping mechanism for physical comedy? Like you know killing yourself isn't even a luxury you're allowed anymore, but every once in a while you just jump bc jumping has become a joke between you and your coworkers?
https://www.reddit.com/r/KitchenConfidential/comments/1ll2r6l/gota_get_that_money/
I remember a video, probably liveleak, of a guy jumping on one as a test or joke. It failed and he fell.
So not only are the nets there to prevent employees from committing suicide by self-defenestration, which is only a safety measure put into place after people have actually jumped from the window & died, but the nets are also ineffective and don't serve the purpose they were intended? Great.
to be clear, the nets in the OP are not to protect the person falling. they would be at the top if that's what they were for
The nets are not there to prevent suicides. The nets are there to prevent the company losing business. So long as they are able to say, "look we care about our workers", western companies won't be pressured into changing suppliers by slactivists on twitter.
It's there to protect the people on the ground not the jumpers. If you are coming out of the building and someone jumps instead of being killed by a human projectile you get splattered with some fluids and pelted with some chunks. Unpleasant but not fatal.
Is this one of the cell phone factories in China?
Also I feel like if I had a good running start from high enough, I could clear that net.
With 'terminal velocity' everything's possible
Are we talking about the DOS game or the Charlie Sheen movie?
Oh here we go again, gotta educate people about the limitations & fine print regarding terminal velocity: https://lemmy.world/comment/20184977
That building is incredibly ugly.
Now you can understand why they want to kill themselves.
The architect wants to throw himself off the roof because the nets make it look so ugly but he can't because he designed it with the ugly nets
Quite the conundrum!
I'm certain I could easily jump farther than the net even if there was a fence around the top
50 Dollars says you can't 😈
I couldn't clear that at a running jump, let alone from a widow.
who said anything about a window? even the original green said roof
People overestimate how much momentum you'd get when jumping off something like, you'd be going straight down pretty quick.
*weggies
Bcs you know that net sliced right up your butthole.