The physics of falls: why it is more dangerous to fall from the third rather than from the fourth floor. How to survive a fall from a great height What to do if you hurt your leg

Antipyretics for children are prescribed by a pediatrician. But there are emergency situations with fever when the child needs to be given medicine immediately. Then the parents take responsibility and use antipyretic drugs. What is allowed to be given to infants? How can you lower the temperature in older children? What medications are the safest?

Incredible facts

It is probably impossible to find a person in our country who, as a child, would not read (or listen to!) the following lines of the unforgettable Russian Soviet children's writer Agnia Barto: “The bull walks, sways, sighs as he goes: “Oh, the board is ending, now I’m going to fall!”. It is difficult to say whether the quintessence of childhood nightmares, cruelty or just normal childhood curiosity was a completely logical question: So what, after all, will happen to the bull when he falls? What awaits him in the unknown that the “heartless” Agnia Lvovna painted for us? However, the years go by, and we understand that the bull, in fact, was not in danger! Well, I would hit my forehead on the ground, get up, and go on my way for a walk. Next time he will be more careful and think a hundred times before climbing where he shouldn’t!

However, Americans, clearly not familiar with the work of the famous children's writer, continue to ask rather childish questions, already at a very advanced age! Judge for yourself: quite recently, on the pages of a well-known English-language Internet resource dedicated to various aspects related to travel and mysterious stories, information leaked about a study by American scientists, who were tasked with finding out what would happen to a person if he fell into... a volcano? The question sounds, at the very least, strange, but one thing cannot help but be “encouraging” in this whole story - perspicacious scientists knew that a person who got too close to the edge of the vent and fell down would undoubtedly die. But how exactly will he die?!

As it turns out, the question concerned mainly the active volcano. It is not known what research methods the Americans used to study this issue (whether they threw a couple of volunteers into the burning abyss, or did without casualties), but the question caused a much greater resonance than it might seem at first glance to any sane person! As a result, after making remarkable efforts, scientists were able to answer the question: leaving not a drop of hope to the most complete optimists: a person who falls into a volcano will die!

However, his death will not be as colorful as, say, the death of Gollum, one of the heroes of the novels of the English writer Tolkien, whose works were filmed in the film trilogy “The Lord of the Rings”. If anyone doesn’t remember, Gollum’s end was terrible - he fell into lava, which immediately swallowed him. However, Gollum is not alone - a similar end awaited all Hollywood (and not only) characters falling into lava or a volcano.

In fact, lava is a substance of extremely high density (after all, it consists of molten solid rocks), which means that any living creature that falls from a height into lava will not be absorbed by it, but rather will simply stick to surface of the fiery stream. However, this does not mean at all that the unfortunate inattentive wretch who finds himself in such trouble will have any chance of salvation!

His fate is quite predictable - the person will immediately be engulfed in flames, and will burn to the ground literally within a matter of minutes. Well, one cannot help but be filled with gratitude to the researchers, since now it becomes clear that one should stay away from the crater of the volcano. However, a completely reasonable question arises: if a person who falls into lava does not manage to “drown” in it due to his small weight and high density of the fiery flow, then what will happen to a living object of greater mass? Say, with a cow? Or with an elephant! There is still something for American scientists to think about, something to experiment with...

What to do if you fell from scaffolding from a height of a 10-story building? Or if your parachute didn't open? The chances of survival will be very low, but survival is still possible. The main thing is not to get confused, as there are ways to influence the speed of your fall and reduce the force of the impact when you land.

Steps

What to do if you fall from a height of several floors

Grab something as you fall. If you can grab a large object, such as a board or block, you will greatly increase your chances of survival. This object will absorb some of the impact during landing and, accordingly, will take some of the stress off your bones.

Try dividing your fall into segments. If you are falling from a building or cliff, you can slow your fall by grabbing onto ledges, trees, or other objects. This will reduce the speed of your fall and break it up into several distinct stages, giving you a better chance of survival.

Relax your body. If you have clenched your knees and elbows and tensed your muscles, hitting the ground will cause much more damage to your vital organs. Don't strain your body. Try to relax your body so that it can more easily bear the impact of hitting the ground.

One way to help you feel (relatively) calm is to focus on steps that will increase your chances of survival.
Feel your body, move your limbs so they don't contract.

Bend your knees. Perhaps the most important (or simplest) thing to do to survive a fall is to bend your knees. Research has shown that bending your knees can reduce the force of an impact by 36 times. But don't bend them too much, do it just enough so that they don't strain.

Land feet first. No matter how high you fall, always try to land feet first. This way, the force of the impact will be concentrated in a very small area, allowing your legs to take the brunt of the damage. If you are in an unsuitable position, try to right yourself before impact.
- Fortunately, accepting this position is an instinctive action.
- Slide your feet tightly together so that they touch the ground at the same time.
- Land on the balls of your feet. Point your toes slightly downward so that you land on the balls of your feet. This will allow your lower body to absorb the impact more effectively.
Try to fall on your side. After landing on your feet, you will fall on your side, either on your back or the front of your body. Try not to fall on your back. Statistically, falling on your side gives better results. If you fail, then fall forward and stop your fall with your hands.

Protect your head from the rebound. If you fall from a great height, you will most likely bounce back after hitting the surface. In many cases, people who survived the fall (often on their feet) suffered fatal injuries as a result of hitting the ground again after the rebound. You will most likely be unconscious at the time of the rebound. Cover your head with your arms, placing your elbows forward in front of your face, and interlock your fingers behind your head or neck. This will cover most of your head.
Get medical help as quickly as possible. After a fall, the adrenaline rush in your body may be so high that you won't even feel pain. So even if you don't appear to be injured, you may still have fractures or internal injuries that will require immediate treatment. Regardless of how you feel, you need to get to the hospital as soon as possible.

What to do if you fall from an airplane
1. Slow down your fall by forming an arched shape. You'll only have time for this if you're falling out of a plane. Increase your body area by extending your limbs as if you were skydiving.
  - Position your body with your chest towards the ground.
  - Arch your body forward as if you were trying to reach your head with your toes.
  - Extend your arms to the sides and bend your elbows at right angles so that they are parallel to your head, palms down. Spread your legs shoulder-width apart.
  - Bend your knees slightly. Don't strain your knees, relax your leg muscles.
2. Find the best place to land. For falls from very high heights, the type of surface has the greatest impact on your chances of survival. Look for steep slopes that gradually level out so you can gradually slow down after a fall. Watch the surface below you as you fall.
  - Hard, hard surfaces are the worst choice for landing. Very uneven surfaces, which will provide less space to distribute the impact force, are also undesirable.
  - The best choices are surfaces that will be dented on impact, such as snow, soft ground (a plowed field or swamp), and trees or dense vegetation (although in this case there is a high risk of being impaled by a branch).
  - Falling into water is not dangerous only when falling from a height of no more than 45 meters. If the height is higher, the effect will be comparable to falling on concrete, since in this case the water will not have time to compress. If you fall into the water, you can also drown, as you will most likely lose consciousness from hitting the surface. The chances of survival will increase significantly if the water is in a boiling state.
3. Guide yourself to the landing spot. If you are falling from a plane, you will have approximately 1-3 minutes before landing. You have to cover a considerable distance while being in an upright position (about three kilometers).
  - By adopting an arched position as described above, you can change the direction of the fall to a more horizontal one. To do this, move your arms slightly back towards your shoulders (so that they are not stretched too far forward) and straighten your legs.
  - You can move in the opposite direction by straightening your arms and bending your knees, as if you want to touch your head with the heels of your feet.
  - A turn to the right can be performed by slightly bending your body to the right (lowering your right shoulder) while in an arched position, and a turn to the left by lowering your left shoulder accordingly.
4. Use proper landing technique. Remember to relax your body, keep your knees slightly bent, and try to land feet first. Try to fall forward rather than backward, and cover your head with your hands in case of a rebound.
  - If you are in an arcing position, be upright before landing (to get a better idea of the time available, remember that if you fall from a height of 300 meters, you will have 6-10 seconds before landing).
- If you start to spin, try to straighten yourself out by taking an arched position. At least this way you will be at least a little calmer.
- If the place you fell into is made of sand or clay, then there is a chance that you might get stuck there. Do not panic! Start moving as if you were climbing stairs, helping yourself with your hands. You should have enough oxygen for about a minute, this should be enough for you to reach the surface,
- Stay calm, if you start to panic you won't be able to think clearly!
- If you're above a city, you won't have much choice in terms of possible landing spots, but glass or tin roofs, canopies, and cars will be better than streets and concrete roofs.
- Being fit and young increases your chances of survival. You may not get any younger, but if you need some incentive to take care of yourself, this is it.

The most common cause of injury in winter is playing catch-up with public transport. At the same time, we all understand that running after a minibus or bus is harmful: firstly, you still won’t catch up, and secondly, you will create a lot of problems for yourself. The obvious ones are stress and strain on the cardiovascular system, as well as injury. In a state where you cannot control the safety of movement, you step on an icy sidewalk, slip... When young people fall, they most often experience ankle fractures in the ankle joint, and they require quite serious and long-term treatment. Or a broken arm, if a person, while falling, manages to put his arm forward, protecting his face from “meeting” the sidewalk. In older people, the proximal femur is most often fractured. Well, of course, almost half of the active population of St. Petersburg receives bruises, dislocations and sprains during the winter.

What to do if you hurt your leg

If you fell and, overcoming the pain, moved on with oohs and aahs, monitor your condition. A bruise that seems harmless can cause big problems: a bruise in a woman’s chest is fraught with the formation of tumors, and a concussion can lead to headaches, decreased vision and hearing, and other neurological pathologies.

A fracture or serious dislocation is usually diagnosed without problems: sharp pain, increasing swelling and the inability to move the injured arm or leg normally. If you are in the city, you should immediately call an ambulance. In the suburbs it is more difficult with an ambulance, so the victim must be given first aid correctly, otherwise the patient’s condition can be aggravated.

Under no circumstances should you pull your arm or leg, twist or straighten it. These uncontrolled actions can only cause harm, unless, of course, they are performed by a doctor who is able to assess the situation in the “field” conditions. Everyone remembers that in case of a fracture, it is necessary to apply a splint, or rather, to create rest for the damaged organ. This does not mean at all that you need to look for a stick for fixation; it is enough to tie the sore leg to the healthy one, for example, with a scarf, and an arm to the chest. But all this must be done very carefully so that the person does not writhe in pain.

We must not forget that while the victim was being helped, he was lying in the snow all this time. Therefore, if there is damage, he needs to be helped to move to a warm room, or moved to some kind of blanket to insulate him from the cold ground. To relieve pain, you can take any painkiller (Nurofen, Ketanov).

At contusion of the shoulder joint and shoulder There is an outpouring of blood into the joint cavity (hemarthrosis). Bruise and hemarthrosis are accompanied by severe pain, especially when moving the joint and feeling it. A swelling forms in the joint area, their contours become smooth, and sometimes a bruise is visible under the skin.

The result of the fall may be large deltoid muscle rupture(she moves her hand to the side). This injury can be identified by swelling of the soft tissues and hemorrhage on the lateral surface of the shoulder. And also due to severe pain when feeling the joint or when trying to move the shoulder or move it to the side. First aid for such injuries is immobilization (hanging the arm around the neck with a scarf), taking an anesthetic, applying ice to the muscle. Under no circumstances should you do anything else - this injury is difficult to distinguish from a fracture, so you should immediately consult a doctor.

At sprained ligaments and muscles shoulder joint pain occurs mainly when moving in a certain direction. When a tendon ruptures, the shoulder area hurts from strain, for example, when lifting even light weights. Pain in these cases can be relieved by using painkillers and cold (ice) compresses.

Elderly trauma

The most common and very dangerous injury for older people is a fracture of the proximal femoral neck. So if you see that an elderly woman has slipped, fallen and cannot get up, do not pass by. If she complains of pain in the ankle area, that's one story; osteoporosis in the elderly leads to brittle bones that break easily. The victim should at least be dragged to the wall, if it is not possible to bring her into the room, and call an ambulance. When the pain is concentrated in the hip area, you shouldn’t even move it (if it didn’t happen on the roadway) - immediately call an ambulance.

Falling to the fifth point

Fractures or injuries to the coccyx are accompanied by damage to the so-called ischial tuberosities. If a man or woman of non-childbearing age has suffered from a fall, no specific treatment is required. The doctor will prescribe bed rest and medication. If a woman is about to give birth, and the tailbone was deformed due to a fall, then big problems are possible; it needs to be realigned and seriously treated.

It is very dangerous if, after a fall, pain appears not in the tailbone area, but higher up - in the lower back or cervical spine (manifested by headaches, and not just pain in the neck). This suggests that the person received not direct, but indirect trauma. The consequences can be very different - from the acute development of a hernia to a vertebral fracture. If pain in the spine occurs after a fall, you should urgently seek help from a traumatologist. Based on the results of the examination, he will either prescribe the necessary treatment or refer you to another specialist. Diagnostics are prescribed after examination: x-ray, CT, MRI.

Falling and hitting your head on the ice

If, after an unsuccessful fall, loss of consciousness, nausea, vomiting, or headache are observed, bed rest and mandatory consultation with a doctor are required. But even if there are no such symptoms, and after a fall a person does not remember how he fell or who lifted him, this is the first sign of a concussion, and you should definitely consult a doctor. The principles of first aid for concussions were formed by Hippocrates. These are cold, hunger and rest plus symptomatic treatment.

With any injury, the main thing is not to panic and remember that the worst thing that could happen is over. Ahead- healing process. Even if you haven’t planned it for the near future...

How to avoid becoming a victim of ice

1. Practice falling. If you feel like you have slipped and cannot maintain your balance, pull your head into your shoulders, press your elbows to your sides, straighten your back, and bend your legs slightly. Since you are falling, try to fall on your side without putting your straight arms forward.

Are you falling on your back? Tuck your chin to your chest and spread your arms wider so that they serve as shock absorbers when you fall.

If you slip on the stairs and fall down, take care of your face and head, and group yourself if possible.

Of course, it’s difficult to remember these tips when you’ve already fallen. Maybe it's worth practicing? Our public utilities are unlikely to perform better in the coming years, so no one is immune from the fall.

2. Drunk people fall more often. Don’t believe those who say that when they are drunk, someone places straws at the place where they fall. It is not true. Most injuries occur to people who are intoxicated. Therefore, after breastfeeding, stay at home.

3. Resist physical laws. You can reduce slipping and fight gravity by following simple rules. Choose shoes with non-slip, preferably grooved soles. Women should give up high heels and even more so stilettos during this period. Watch your step. And if there is a slippery road ahead, step on the ground with your whole foot.

Irina Baglikova

Doctor Peter

You probably think that if you fall into a black hole, you will die instantly. But in reality, physicists believe, your fate will be much stranger. This could happen to anyone in the future. Maybe you're trying to find a new habitable planet for the human race, or maybe you just fell asleep on a long journey. What happens if you fall into a black hole? You might expect to be crushed or torn apart. But it's not like that.

The moment you enter a black hole, reality will be split into two. In one you will be immediately destroyed, and in the other you will be plunged into a black hole completely unharmed.

A black hole is a place where the known laws of physics do not apply. Einstein taught us that gravity bends space itself, deforms it. So if you take a dense enough object, spacetime can become so curved that it folds in on itself, creating a hole in the very fabric of reality.

A massive star that has run out of fuel could provide the extreme density needed to create this warped patch of space. Bend under its own weight and collapsing, a massive object pulls space-time with it. The gravitational field becomes so powerful that not even light can escape, dooming the region in which the star is located to a grim fate: a black hole.

The outer boundary of a black hole is its event horizon, the point at which the force of gravity counters light's attempts to escape. Get too close and there's no turning back.

The event horizon is ablaze with energy. Quantum effects at this boundary create streams of hot particles flowing back into the Universe. This is the so-called Hawking radiation, named after the physicist Stephen Hawking who predicted its existence. After enough time, the black hole will evaporate its mass completely and disappear.

As you plunge into a black hole, you will find that space becomes more and more curved until the very center becomes infinitely curved. This is the singularity. Space and time cease to make any sense, and the laws of physics as we know them, which require space and time, no longer apply.

What happens at the singularity? No one knows. Another universe? Oblivion? Is Matthew McConaughey floating on the other side of bookshelves? Mystery.

What happens if you accidentally fall into one of these cosmic aberrations? First, let's ask your space buddy - let's call her Anna - who watches in horror as you swim towards the black hole while she remains at a safe distance. She observes strange things.

If you accelerate towards the event horizon, Anna sees you stretched and distorted, as if she were looking at you through a giant magnifying glass. Additionally, the closer you get to the horizon, the more your movements slow down.

You can't shout because there's no air in space, but you can try signaling a Morse message to Anna with the light of your iPhone (there's even an app for that). However, your words will reach her more and more slowly as the light waves are stretched to lower and redder frequencies: “Okay, okay, okay...”.

When you reach the horizon, Anna will see that you are frozen, as if someone pressed the pause button. You will be imprinted there, immobilized and stretched across the entire surface of the horizon, as the growing heat begins to consume you.

According to Anna, you are slowly being erased by the stretching of space, the stopping of time and the heat of Hawking radiation. Before plunging into the darkness of a black hole, you will turn to ash.

But before we start planning the funeral, let's forget about Anna and see this creepy scene from your point of view. And do you know what's going on here? Nothing.

You're floating straight into nature's most sinister manifestation without getting a bump or a bruise - and you certainly don't get stretched, slowed, or fried by radiation. Because you are in free fall and do not experience gravity: Einstein called this “the happiest thought.”

After all, the event horizon is not a brick wall floating in space. This is an artifact of perspective. An observer who remains outside the black hole cannot see through it, but that is not your problem. The horizon does not exist for you.

If the black hole were smaller, you'd have problems. The force of gravity would be much stronger at your feet than at your head, and would stretch you out like spaghetti. But luckily for you, it's a big black hole, millions of times more massive than the Sun, so the forces that would spaghettiify you are weak enough to be ignored.

Moreover, in a large enough black hole, you could live the rest of your life and then die in a singularity.

How normal this life will be is a big question, considering that you were sucked against your will into a gap in the space-time continuum and there is no way back.

But if you think about it, we all know this feeling, from the experience of communicating not with space, but with time. Time goes only forward, never backward, and sucks us in against our will, leaving no chance for retreat.

This is not just an analogy. Black holes distort space and time to such an extreme state that inside the black hole's event horizon, space and time actually reverse their roles. In reality, it is time that sucks you into the singularity. You can't turn around and walk away from a black hole any more than you can turn around and walk back into the past.

At this point you will ask yourself: what is wrong with Anna? If you're chilling inside a black hole, surrounded by empty space, why does your partner see you burning up in radiation at the event horizon? Hallucinations?

In fact, Anna is in perfect health. From her point of view, you really burned out on the horizon. This is not an illusion. She might even collect your ashes and send them home.

In fact, the laws of nature require you to stay outside the black hole, as seen from Anna's point of view. This is because quantum physics requires that information does not disappear or get lost. Every bit of information that indicates your existence must remain beyond the horizon so that Anna's laws of physics are not violated.

On the other hand, the laws of physics also require that you sail across the horizon without colliding with hot particles or anything out of the ordinary. Otherwise, you will be violating Einstein's "happiest thought" and his general theory of relativity.

So, the laws of physics require that you simultaneously be outside the black hole as a pile of ash and inside the black hole, alive and well. And there is also the third law of physics, which says that information cannot be cloned. You must be in two places, but there can only be one copy of you.

One way or another, the laws of physics lead us to a conclusion that seems rather meaningless. Physicists call this puzzle the black hole information paradox. Fortunately, in the 1990s they found a way to solve it.

Leonard Susskind concluded that there is no paradox because no one sees your copy. Anna sees only one copy of you. You only see one copy of yourself. You and Anna will never be able to compare them (and your observations too). And there is no third observer who can simultaneously observe the black hole from inside and outside. So no laws of physics are violated.

But you probably would like to know whose story is true. Are you dead or alive? If black holes have taught us anything, there is simply no answer to this question. The reality depends on who you ask. There is Anna’s reality and your reality. That's all.

At least that's what they thought for a long time. In the summer of 2012, physicists Ahmed Almheiri, Donald Marolf, Joe Polchinski and James Sully, collectively known as AMPS, conceived a thought experiment that threatened to upend everything we had gathered about black holes.

They suggested that Susskind's solution is based on the idea that any discrepancy between you and Anna is mediated by the event horizon. It doesn't matter if Anna saw a failed version of you being torn to pieces by Hawking radiation, because the horizon prevents her from seeing another version of you floating in a black hole.

But what if there was a way for her to know what was on the other side of the horizon without crossing it?

Ordinary relativity will say "no-no", but quantum mechanics blurs the rules a little. Anna could see beyond the horizon using a little trick that Einstein called “spooky action at a distance.”

This occurs when two sets of particles, separated in space, become mysteriously "entangled." They are part of a single invisible whole, so the information that describes them is mysteriously linked between them.

The idea of AMPS is based on this phenomenon. Let's say Anna scoops up some information from the horizon - let's call her A.

If her story is correct, and you've already gone to a better world, then A, scooped up in Hawking radiation outside the black hole, should be entangled with another piece of information B, which is also part of the hot cloud of radiation.

On the other hand, if your story is correct and you are alive and well on the other side of the event horizon, then A must be entangled with another piece of information C, which is somewhere inside the black hole. But here's the thing: each bit of information can only be confused once. It follows that A can be entangled with either B or C, but not both.

So Anna takes her particle A and puts it into a manual entanglement decoding machine, which tells her the answer: B or C.

If the answer is C, your story wins, but the laws of quantum mechanics are broken. If A is entangled with C, who is deep inside in a black hole, then this piece of information is lost to Anna forever. This violates the quantum law of the impossibility of losing information.

That leaves B. If Anna's decoding machine finds that A is entangled with B, Anna wins and general relativity loses. If A is entangled with B, Anna's story will be the only true story, which means that you actually burned to ashes. Instead of sailing straight across the horizon, as relativity dictates, you will encounter a blazing wall of fire.

So we're back where we started: what happens when you fall into a black hole? Do you slide through it and live a normal life, thanks to a reality that is strangely dependent on the observer? Or do you approach the horizon of a black hole only to encounter a deadly wall of fire?

No one knows the answer, which is why this question has become one of the most controversial in the field of fundamental physics.

For more than a hundred years, physicists have been trying to reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics, believing that one of them will eventually have to give way. The solution to the paradox of the aforementioned wall of fire should point to a winner, as well as lead us to an even deeper theory of the universe.

One clue may lie in Anna's decoding machine. Figuring out which of the other bits of information is entangled with A is an extremely difficult task. So physicists Daniel Harlow of Princeton University in New Jersey and Patrick Hayden of Stanford University in California decided to figure out how long it would take to decode.

In 2013, they calculated that even with the fastest computer that could exist, it would take Anna an incredibly long time to decipher the entanglement. By the time she finds the answer, the black hole will have long evaporated, disappeared from the Universe and taken with it the mystery of the deadly wall of fire.

If this is true, then the sheer complexity of the problem may prevent Anna from figuring out whose story is true. Both stories would remain equally true, the laws of physics intact, reality dependent on the observer, and no one in danger of being consumed by a wall of fire.

It also gives physicists something new to think about: the tantalizing connections between complex calculations (like the ones Anna can't do) and space-time. Perhaps there is something more lurking here somewhere.

These are black holes. They are not only annoying obstacles for space travelers. They are also theoretical laboratories that push the laws of physics to a fever pitch and take the subtle nuances of our Universe to such a level that they can no longer be ignored.

If the true nature of reality is hiding somewhere, the best place to look for it is a black hole. True, it’s better to look from the inside. Let's send Anna, now it's her turn.

What happens if you fall into a black hole?
Ilya Khel

Friends, let’s be honest, we didn’t have time to write anything interesting, so we’ll use someone else’s work :) On the Internet, we came across an excellent article that describes in accessible language one of the key mysteries of theoretical physics. We decided to present this material in full, because it is the author’s original style that makes it especially fascinating. We hope it will appeal to those who are interested in the mysteries of our Universe.

So, what happens if you fall into a black hole?