h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

how long a vertical drop can be done in a zorb and still be walked away from??

What's a zorb?

And who's walking away?

a zorb ia a large plastic sphere filled with air and bungees and you get in it and get rolled down a hill.

Zorb? Ask SoRb. He has a common interest in science and extreme plummeting.

isnt he now smokehammer????

back on topic

this is a zorb

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dorset/content/image_galleries/zorb_gallery.shtml

I wonder why you think anyone here is likely to have a remote idea of the answer?

Wouldn't it be better to ask the manufacturers of a Zorb? Presumably they have tested it.

<>

the question came to me in those strange times between sleep and waking and i thought gravity and sudden stops with big plastic balls and elastic was a science type question, that wouldn't boil down to 2 peoples different interpretations of quantum mechanics

<

"Presumably they have tested it"

- Sorry, I have this wonderful image in my head now of a testing ground. Crane winches up Zorb to 50 feet. Drops it. Man gets out. Man in lab coat puts tick in box on clipboard.
Crane winches up Zorb to 60 feet. Drops it. Loud pop is heard, red soggy mess covers interior of Zorb. Man in lab coat tuts, and puts cross in box.

I imagine crash test dummies are useful for this sort of thing.

ah come on, their music wasn't that bad!

Can't be calculated. Insufficient data.

Known variables:
- acceleration due to gravity - about 10m/s2 (assuming you do this on earth)
- survivable deceleration - say 10gs (humans have survived much more but not comfortably)
- thickness of a Zorb ball - about 0.6m. (the distance in which you'd have to go from falling to a standstill in order to remove any impact with the ground).

Relevant but unknown variables:
- operating pressure of a Zorb ball
- tensile strength of material
- coefficient of restitution of impact zone.
- how fast you'd be happy to actually hit the ground, assuming that speed is greater than zero.

Personally, based on finger in wind estimates of the above, if you offered me the opportunity to be pushed off an Olympic diving board in a Zorb ball onto a concrete floor, I'd say yes to the 1m, 3m, and probably 5m boards, but a big no to the 10m. But then I wouldn't jump off a 10m board into /water/, so what do I know?

thank you for the answer,

the reason i asked was in bingo adverts on the tv they use zorbs and show some on building rooves

and i wondered if extreme sports enthusiasts might try vertical zorbing, or if it might mutate into this fictional sport from the 2000AD universe


<>

Would you jump into water in a zorb, though?

Water's fairly hard under impact especially to something flat, or even to a large sphere.

TRiG.

Don't think your experience of the impact would be much different if you hit concrete or water in a Zorb from 5m.

This post has been removed.