What If Everyone JUMPED At Once?

What if every single person on Earth jumped at the exact same time? Would that create an earthquake, or would it be so insignificant that we wouldn’t even notice? To answer that, we first need to consider the Earth’s rotation. Our planet spins rapidly—at the equator, it’s moving over 1,000 miles per hour. Just like an ice skater who speeds up by pulling their arms in, any mass moving closer to the Earth’s center can slightly increase its rotational speed.

Now, while this effect is negligible for an individual, larger geological events can have measurable impacts. For example, the massive earthquake in Japan redistributed so much of the Earth’s mass that our days have become 1.8 microseconds shorter since then. But what about our collective jump?

Imagine all 7 billion people on Earth standing together. If we lived at the same density as New Yorkers, we could all fit into the state of Texas. But if we stood shoulder to shoulder for the jump, we could fit everyone into just 500 square miles, roughly the size of Los Angeles. Picture that sight: every person on Earth, gathered in one place, ready to jump!

Now, what happens when we actually jump? Unfortunately, not much. While we may feel significant as individuals, our combined mass pales in comparison to the Earth’s. If everyone jumped 30 centimeters at the same time, calculations show we would displace the Earth by just about 1/100th the width of a hydrogen atom. Furthermore, we’d all return to our original positions, meaning the Earth would simply move back to where it started.

So, could this massive synchronized jump create seismic activity? In a study where 50,000 people jumped simultaneously, the seismic impact measured just 0.6 on the Richter scale—hardly enough to register as an earthquake. To match the magnitude of the recent Japan earthquake, we would need 7 million times more people than currently inhabit the Earth.

While we may not be able to create seismic waves, our jump would contain a lot of energy. For instance, if just the people in China jumped together, their combined effort would produce the energy equivalent to 500 tons of TNT. However, this amount is trivial compared to the Earth’s weight, which is approximately 6 sextillion tons.

Now, let’s discuss the concept of "decimate." Many use it to mean "destroy completely," but it actually originates from the Latin word “decimus,” meaning "tenth." To decimate something means to reduce it by one-tenth. So next time you don’t perform well on a quiz, remember that you might have decimated it by getting just 10% correct.

Shifting gears, let’s talk about YouTube audiences and the concept of Dunbar's Number, which estimates the maximum number of stable social relationships a person can maintain at once—typically between 100 and 230. This means that when a video garners more than 230 views, it has reached an audience larger than anyone can realistically know well at a moment in time.

If a video has over 100,000 views, more people have seen that video than you could ever meet face-to-face in your lifetime. Given that the average lifespan is about 28,470 days, even meeting just two or three new people daily would still fall short of that number.

Though our individual actions might not significantly affect the Earth’s position or rotation, they do have an effect. According to Newton’s Third Law, when you exert a force on the Earth—like when you jump or fall—it pulls back with equal force. If you weigh 150 pounds, you're pulling the Earth up with the same force. If you fall three meters, you’ve pulled the Earth up a minuscule amount, about a billionth of the width of a proton.