The Giant Jump was a huge success. Over 1 million children jumped up and down at the same time and measured the effects on their own homemade seismometers. Together we set Guinness World Records for the largest simultaneous jump, and the largest number of people participating in a World Record.

The Giant Jump was an experiment to find out what would happen when 1 million children jumped up and down at the same time. We had lots of predictions: would trees fall over, would there be a huge earthquake, or would the effect not be measurable?

So what did happen?

Nearly 5000 schools took part in the Giant Jump, with over 1 million children. Results were measured in three ways:

• Many of the schools taking part made their own seismometers, and we are waiting to receive the results from these homemade seismometers. There will definitely be local effects from the jumping.
• The seismometers at each of the Science Year launch venues have recorded measurable traces, and they will be showing an example on their website next week.
• The British Geological Survey has been looking at their seismic stations, and have reported a small trace in Cornwall, but the results are still being investigated.

The Giant Jump generated high frequency waves that are rapidly absorbed in the earth. So we definitely rocked Britain - especially in the locality of all the schools taking part.

Results just in: Bristol seismologists predict that the Giant Jump in Bristol was equivalent to one hundreth of an average earthquake - so well jumped Bristol.

More detailed results will appear here in two weeks.

Science is all about investigation, predicting and testing what would happen in different situations. Results are important whether something happens as we expect or not. The Giant Jump did not cause an earthquake... so we can sleep well at night knowing that, contrary to the popular myth, even if everyone in China jumps up and down at the same time we won't get swept away by a tidal wave!

Coelacanth

20.09.01. Front Page

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