this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2025
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xkcd

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I wonder what surviving human held the record before balloons (excluding edge cases like jumping gaps on a mountain bridge). Probably it was someone falling from a cliff into snow or water, but maybe it involved something weird like a gunpowder explosion or volcano.

Explainxkcd: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/3039:_Human_Altitude

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[–] kbal@fedia.io 53 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I'm more interested in the altitude of the median human. I suppose it's increased slightly since the invention of office buildings, chairs, and so on.

[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 39 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Chairs were a game changer

[–] Repelle@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Chairs are overrated. I pretty much always choose the floor. Even the couch tends to be used mostly as a backrest for sitting on the floor

[–] thejml@lemm.ee 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The floor is great. It’s really hard to fall off the floor.

[–] Frozengyro@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

vertigo enters chat

[–] pixelscript@lemm.ee 12 points 1 month ago

I wonder if it may well have gone down with the combination of boom in population and rapid urbanization around coasts.

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 20 points 1 month ago

I thought this was a beautiful way to see our progress out in one frame. Then I thought, what about human object reach? So Voyager 1 would be about three more log ticks up at 25 billion km (about the top of the nav buttons) with other probes falling below that at their appropriate times.

[–] jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de 15 points 1 month ago (2 children)

The pre-1800 numbers sound too low. There are lots of old buildings much higher than 10 meters high, and I doubt they were all unoccupied at the same time.

[–] kerrigan778@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago

If you look at the description of the data ie. That falls are considered to be gaining altitude not losing altitude, they seem to be referring to distance from solid object connected to ground not distance from ground or sea level. So mountains and buildings don't count unless you jump off of it.

[–] Fermion@feddit.nl 3 points 1 month ago

Even before tall buildings, trees should put the noise floor above 30 meters.

[–] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

very approximate

But what are the constant dips between years?

[–] jungle@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Must be years without launches.

[–] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

So in 1882 nobody went above 1.5 meters.

[–] kbal@fedia.io 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Something weird must've been going on for sure. Two years later Flatland was published.

[–] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Lol, immediately as the 2D book is published, boom, 3km in 3rdD!

[–] Tilgare@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I want to see how this looks without the log scale on the y axis.

[–] j4yt33@feddit.org 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)
[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

Should include below the earth's surface too. That would be a lot less impressive.

[–] Iron_Lynx@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Poster's note: I just noticed it uploaded and didn't see it posted yet, so I rectified that.

[–] GlassHalfHopeful@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago

But the Apollo program was fake propaganda!