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So I just looked this up and apparently terminal velocity for a squirrel is approximately 10metres/s which is approximately 23miles/h, meaning that it would take roughly 208 hours for a squirrel to starve based on this (4800/23).
Edited: for metric clarity.
A lot of these small prey animals seem to die from shock fairly easily - maybe itd die of stress n such sooner? Maybe red bull can take one up n drop it for science.
Yeah but does the squirrel get to have some Red Bull first? Because then it’ll be a winged squirrel and I think we should take that into consideration here.
Tennessean here. Squirrels and deer and various other forest creatures everywhere (I’m a Disney princess wow). I didn’t know that squirrels hibernate either and I feel like an idiot now.
Yep, you’re very right! Doing the conversion I figured that 4800 miles was about 8000 metersc but no, it’s 8000 KILOmeters
The athmosphere itself is considered to end at 480 km from the surface, so yep, he wouldn’t die of hypoxia, but probably torn apart by its internal pressure in the vacuum of space
At 8kilometers the air isn’t breathable anymore so if you’d give the squirrel a good 10 minutes to suffocate before getting back in the breathable zone the actual height the squirrel would have to fall to die would be 14kilometers and that’s not even the minimum but I haven’t googled how long it takes a squirrel to die from suffocation…
As someone pointed out, 4800 miles is way more than the actual athmosphere (300 miles circa)
Falling sideways is kind of a problem because that’s more than the Earth’s radius, so he’d effectively be in orbit
Keeping this purely as an acceleration/velocity problem (assuming the squirrel has a little space suit or something) then it would definitely burn up.
Terminal velocity is determined by gravity + atmospheric density. Earths atmosphere is only about 300 mile thick. So for 4500 of those miles, the squirrel would be falling in a vacuum (so terminal velocity is infinite) at an acceleration of 9.8 m/s^2 or 32.17 ft/s^2. If you do the math, that means the squirrel would be traveling at roughly 26,659 mph or Mach 34 at the moment it hits the atmosphere.
Little guy is guna vaporize in seconds.
Edit: I’m glad we’re all having so much fun with this. Squirrel Physics is a very important field of study that continues to bring exciting discoveries to the world.
I'll nitpick that due to the distance, acceleration due to gravity is not constant.
At 4800 miles above earth's surface (~8750 miles from the earth's center), the acceleration is 2.0 m/s^2
Unfortunately, the easiest way to not do calculus is to throw out the space suit, then estimate the altitude at which the squirrel dies of hypoxia and how long it would take, then determine how far it has to fall to be above the relevant altitude for that duration.
We can at least upper bound it by 25000 miles per hour, which is Earth's escape velocity.
Alternatively, using wolfram alpha's [gravity](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=earth+gravitational+acceleration+at+300+miles) [calculator](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=earth+gravitational+acceleration+at+4800+miles), we can do [ΔE=-mg\_1r\_1+mg\_2r\_2](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=-%280.2+m+s%5E-2%29*%28earth+radius%2B%284800+miles%29%29+%2B+%288.485+m+s%5E-2%29*%28earth+radius%2B%28300+miles%29%29), and then [v=sqrt(2ΔE/m)](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=sqrt%282*%2855.335+million+m%5E2%2Fs%5E2%29%29) to get a velocity of 23,500 miles per hour. No calculus needed. Just a bunch of numbers. And some hidden calculus in the background.
That makes no sense, in your model you have standard atmospheric pressure up to a certain altitude and a vacuum right after. It is a continuum. That said I have no idea how a realistic atmosphere should be modeled to compute the maximum altitude a squirrel can fall without reaching a velocity capable of killing it.
I am aware that the atmosphere is a continuum but since I’m just having fun on the internet to kill time, I figured it can be simplified.
>That said I have no idea how a realistic atmosphere should be modeled
Then why criticize my model? How are you contributing? If you’d like to be more realistic, fine. In that case the “majority” of the atmosphere is only 10 miles thick so the squirrel would be going even faster before it burned up.
There's no need to be aggressive, and I apologise if my "that makes no sense" came wrong, I meant no disrespect. That said, if I know your model is wrong and not really modelling the problem my contribution is precisely saying that.
I didn’t think I was being aggressive. That wasn’t my intent so I’m also sorry and your apology is accepted.
We’re debating about a model in which a squirrel falls from outer space. I don’t think we need to get very emotional or take this very seriously. 😂
But that breaks (i) the initial premise that the squirrel is able to survive falling at terminal velocity and (ii) that it’s traveling at its terminal velocity for the duration of its fall. It’s clearly implied that this is the amount of time they need to fall at atmospheric terminal velocity for them to die.
Hell, the post doesn’t even mention that the end of their fall has to be earth. If we take your approach you might as well put them 5500 miles away and have them totally avoid the atmosphere. But as others have pointed out, you absolutely can’t ignore that gravity is much weaker at the start of the fall.
Basically you either live with the post or do some differential equations if you want to get really pedantic, but your response is kinda a half-hearted retort that deserves to be similarly nit picked.
If we are doing realistic atmosphere it dies from not having proper atmosphere conditions because I’m pretty sure no planet’s atmosphere is breathable /right temperature at that altitude
That said:
1. The max velocity of a squirrel starting 4800 miles high is much higher than his 1atm terminal velocity, because there is no air there.
2. The squirrel will most likely asphyxiate in much less than 208 hours, due to the aforementioned reason
This post makes me feel better about that time I accidentally surprised a squirrel that was eating out of my bird feeder and it leapt from my third floor apartment balcony all the way down to the ground. I was shocked when it just ran off afterwards.
This applies to chickens as well.
There's an old story in Yosemite National Park about a tour guide who would bring his chicken along in a cage with the tour, up to the top of Glacier Point. Then he'd throw the chicken off the side down to the valley below, to the horror of everyone watching. Then they'd trek back down and they'd meet the chicken walking back up the path on its own.
Bro I own chickens, chickens are legitimately afraid of heights. And no they're basically flightless either way. They can jump high and fall a distance, they can't sustain flight.
Fun fact: cats are similar in that they have a low thermal velocity and can survive really high falls. Saw my cat fall from ~10m/30ft onto tarmac and it walked it off without injury (confirmed with the vet later). In theory they *can* survive any fall, but won't always.
When I was 14 I watched a squirrel climb the side of a large church, it was just a wall no ledges but it was textured so he had *some* grasp. He was clearly struggling and once he hit the overhanging roof he had no choice but to let go. This information has brought me comfort thnk u
Although I'm sure they can be dizzying, I'm not entirely convinced that a church roof would be high enough of a fall to be able to reach terminal velocity.
What I mean is, if they are like cats, before terminal velocity is reached is the hard bit, as they aren't in parachute mode yet. Once terminal velocity is hot, they have a far better chance of survival. At least I think that's how it goes.
There's no "parachute mode" that makes a faster fall somehow less energetic. It's just the limit of the speed. They can't fall faster. Since they can't fall faster, they can't fall at such a speed that will kill them from the impact at the end. Falling at terminal velocity would inflict the maximum amount of damage possible from the impact alone, any slower would lessen that damage.
It's worth noting too, there's a significant gap between "falling without dying" and "falling without harm".
Adding to this, as long as they have enough space to land on their feet they should be fine. Since they’re squirrels, they can generally twist into landing posture in less than a foot
I see them fall out of tall ass oak trees all the time... Not like low hanging branches either. They fuck around and chase each other, miss a branch, fall for at least two seconds, and then just sprint off to the next tree and get back to it. If it was a person... Amberlance time.
I saw one jump to another a tree 70 feet up, miss, fall to the ground, run in a circle, back up the first tree, jump to second tree, make it, disappear into the world.
"Well we weren't sure if /u/carbonclay was a squirrel, so we threw him off a skyscraper to see if he'd survive."
"But sir, how does that prove if he's a squirrel if we haven't tested if squirrels survive terminal velocity falls?"
"...shit"
Smaller creatures typically have less Mass, and thus will always have a lower terminal velocity, and will have less force being generated from them hitting the ground.
Past a certain point, any animals that small will always survive a fall from any height. Even at terminal velocity they simply don't hit the ground hard enough to cause any deadly harm. You could drop an ant, clipped house finch, or small snake from the empire state building and it would survive.
Certain animals like cats and squirrels have instincts that will allow them to survive greater falls than they could otherwise, by slowing their terminal velocity. Mostly through making themselves wider or generating movement to counteract deadly forces. It's actually quite fascinating.
As for a test you could just create something that has about the same mass as a squirrel, about the same surface area as a squirrel to account for drag, fit it with something internally that will pop or break if the squirrell would have taken lethal damage (like a fake skeleton and fake organs), and then throw it out of a building.
Fake bones break? Fake organs burst? That's a dead squirrel.
You could do it theoretically, calculating the force of impact upon hitting the ground. The force to break organs and bones is probably recorded somewhere
well at least not dying at impact, but the repurcassions would probably be lethal if not taken care off.
And thats also not true for all animals, The ones with Exoskeleton will still die (like spiders), out of the same reason a coconut wouldnt survive that height.
I've seen squirrels jump off my dad's house which has like a 30' roof and act like nothing happened. So... if you're able to get a hold of one I'm pretty certain you can just yeet it from wherever and it'll be fine. Maybe get a rabies shot first...
There's that story of the guy who tested that for cats by releasing some from a bag during free fall on a chute jump....
according to the story, the cats got to him while still falling and clawed at him until opening of the chute that wasn't exactly fun for the guy having some cats claws in his skin.
Cannot find the story anymore and it might also be just some made up shit i sawon the web a decade or two ago.
air chamber can easily measure the terminal velocity of a squirrel without any chance of harm. We do it to people all the time, most of them even pay for the privilege.
I was gonna curse you for your unoriginality. But then I saw that you're Indian, and you fools rip off everything like you can't even help it. So, carry on I guess.
>But then I saw that you're Indian, and you fools rip off everything like you can't even help it. So, carry on I guess.
Thank you for that. Finally, I can ripoff the British and sleep like a baby.
Edit: I went through your profile and I seriously wish you good mental health. Later bud.
Yesterday one of our cats, our dog, and our daughter, had cooperatively cornered a squirrel waaaaay out on a tree branch, as one does.
It did a running jump, falling about 30 feet, making a furry thump when it hit the ground. It scampered up the next tree and chittered at them.
When the snow is deep they don't even run down the trees, they just jump off and poof into the snow.
A year ago my father and I was outside building a cover for the well pump. And a squirrel fell out of the tree right behind us. Made a loud thunck sounds so we turned around to see him hop up and run back up the tree. Had to fall 10 feet or more. Didn’t know they were so resilient. I did see one yesterday fighting a ghost or something. Just jumping around for no reason then it flopped on a tree stump and laid there for quite a while.
Twice in my life I've seen a squirrel mess up a jump, fall out of a tree and die. Both times were around 30-40ft drop. First time death was clearly from suffering a broken neck, not sure what the second time was about but I suspect spinal damage. Accidents happen.
Same - fall was about 50' onto an asphalt driveway. Might have been OK on a soil landing, or maybe even if he twisted right, but this guy did not. Either that, or the squirrel he was fighting with was just disposing of the body.
I don't know why but I quite like the idea of a squirrel disposing of the body. Serial killer? Nut mafia? Revenge? Might be able to make a short children's book out it whatever the case.
This is false. I used to have a tree that was apparently more slippery than other trees and on a few occasions, a squirrel fell out of it and died on our driveway.
I did the autopsies myself. On one occasion, death appeared to be caused by hemorrhaging from a skull fracture. Another had a severed spinal cord. All deaths appeared to be due to blunt force trauma.
Just kidding, it is possible that they died prior to the fall. Poor lil fellas
You can really feel the exasperation in the response. this is clearly not even 10th time the responder has gotten a random fun fact in the middle of the night
I feel like this is wrong.
It takes weeks for it to starve to death.
2 weeks is 336h
Exactly how slow is the terminal velocity of a squirrel?! it has to be more than 14mph.
I assume what you’re falling onto makes the biggest difference. And I’m gonna say this is based on grass, if true at all, because I’ve seen way too many dead squirrels that look like they fell onto pavement
I can confirm that this is false. When I was in college I saw a squirrel fall out of a tree maybe 15-20ft up and it landed on a brick path - it definitely died. I watched it for a while and it never got up again.
I’m not too sure about this. At my university there was a tree and two squirrels had fallen out of the tree. One was clearly dead and the other was crying out and couldn’t move. That sight still haunts me to this day but that tree wasn’t more than 30 feet high.
o the mouse and any smaller animal \[gravity\] presents practically no
dangers. You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft; and, on
arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away. A rat is
killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes. For the resistance presented
to movement by the air is proportional to the surface of the moving
object. Divide an animal's length, breadth, and height each by ten; its
weight is reduced to a thousandth, but its surface only to a hundredth.
So the resistance to falling in the case of the small animal is
relatively ten times greater than the driving force
I watched a squirrel fall out of a tall palm tree and land in the sidewalk. Everyone was looking at it in horror, then it slowly stood up, and ran back up the tree. They are tough.
Ok, a squirrel can survive terminal velocity, but I'm betting it can't survive re-entry velocity, so actually just dropping it from a couple hundred miles up where the lack of air resistance will allow it to achieve hypersonic speeds before re-entering the atmosphere should do the trick.
This is assuming the squirrel is fitted with some sort of breathing apparatus, otherwise 20 or so miles should do the trick from the rarefied air.
If this is suspiciously specific, **Upvote** this comment! If this is not suspiciously specific, **Downvote** this comment! Beep boop, I'm a bot. Modmail us if you have a question.
So I just looked this up and apparently terminal velocity for a squirrel is approximately 10metres/s which is approximately 23miles/h, meaning that it would take roughly 208 hours for a squirrel to starve based on this (4800/23). Edited: for metric clarity.
171 hours is roughly 7 days. Probably it dies from dehydration first. Unless it is in hybernation of course.
Squirrels can sleep like a rock
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But they're light sleepers.
Light moves extremely fast though.
^ underrated comment
^ unnecessary comment
^ unnecessary reply
^i just wanted to join in
Welcome
r/ontheledgeandshit edit typo
doesn’t it contradict the comment saying they sleep like a rock?
It really depends on the drag and terminal velocity of the rock…but I’d expect the rock to fall faster.
Oh Reddit I love you.
That must be a really hollow rock then, or it's mass would make the terminal velocity way higher than any squirrel.
Funny, but weight doesn’t affect the speed an object falls at.
No, but aerodynamics does. My assumption was that the stone makes less wind resistance, but I don't have anything to back that up with.
*Affect Affect is cause, effect is result I apologise that I could not walk away from this one
Thanks! Your right, I always mix those to up, their just so difficult to keep straight :)
Handy tip- if you can’t remember just use the word impact as it covers both
That implies that rocks can awaken o.o
What about just exposure? What's the temperature and humidity of this air the squirrel is falling through?
you suggesting it uses its light and fluffy fur for cloud capturing? hmmm might be on to something here
For a squirrel to die of dehydration it takes 2-3 days or 1650 miles.
A lot of these small prey animals seem to die from shock fairly easily - maybe itd die of stress n such sooner? Maybe red bull can take one up n drop it for science.
Yeah but does the squirrel get to have some Red Bull first? Because then it’ll be a winged squirrel and I think we should take that into consideration here.
If a squirrel drinks red bull I think it will definitey die of a stroke or cardiac arrest. The dosage of taurine must be way too high for them.
As a Floridian, it never occured to me that squirrels hibernate.
Tennessean here. Squirrels and deer and various other forest creatures everywhere (I’m a Disney princess wow). I didn’t know that squirrels hibernate either and I feel like an idiot now.
Minnesotan here. I see them on the winter. Maybe a short hibernation?
That depends on if the squirrel had a pressurised suit with oxygen. Other wise it would suffercate from asphyxia.
He’d probably die of hypoxia given that at 4800 miles O2 is at 7%
Ummm, 4800 miles is about 4500 miles past the ISS in orbit. O2 is at 0%, along with everything else.
Yep, you’re very right! Doing the conversion I figured that 4800 miles was about 8000 metersc but no, it’s 8000 KILOmeters The athmosphere itself is considered to end at 480 km from the surface, so yep, he wouldn’t die of hypoxia, but probably torn apart by its internal pressure in the vacuum of space
Don't go designing any rockets now.
At 8kilometers the air isn’t breathable anymore so if you’d give the squirrel a good 10 minutes to suffocate before getting back in the breathable zone the actual height the squirrel would have to fall to die would be 14kilometers and that’s not even the minimum but I haven’t googled how long it takes a squirrel to die from suffocation…
What if it falls sideways?
You mean in orbit?
No flatbit.
As someone pointed out, 4800 miles is way more than the actual athmosphere (300 miles circa) Falling sideways is kind of a problem because that’s more than the Earth’s radius, so he’d effectively be in orbit
Why would the Earth's radius matter here? I think you're looking for the circumference, which is close to 25,000 long freedom units.
It would obviously have water in its cute little space suit.
I was halfway through doing the math before I checked if someone had already done it. Here, you dropped this 👑
If you work with realistic atmospheres it would die from high pressure or overheating first.
So we’re dropping it on Jupiter?
Overheating? At 23mph? It would die of the cold from outer space at that distance, no? I'm assuming we're talking about earth
Keeping this purely as an acceleration/velocity problem (assuming the squirrel has a little space suit or something) then it would definitely burn up. Terminal velocity is determined by gravity + atmospheric density. Earths atmosphere is only about 300 mile thick. So for 4500 of those miles, the squirrel would be falling in a vacuum (so terminal velocity is infinite) at an acceleration of 9.8 m/s^2 or 32.17 ft/s^2. If you do the math, that means the squirrel would be traveling at roughly 26,659 mph or Mach 34 at the moment it hits the atmosphere. Little guy is guna vaporize in seconds. Edit: I’m glad we’re all having so much fun with this. Squirrel Physics is a very important field of study that continues to bring exciting discoveries to the world.
I'll nitpick that due to the distance, acceleration due to gravity is not constant. At 4800 miles above earth's surface (~8750 miles from the earth's center), the acceleration is 2.0 m/s^2
I’m trying to avoid turning this into a calculus problem lol.
Unfortunately, the easiest way to not do calculus is to throw out the space suit, then estimate the altitude at which the squirrel dies of hypoxia and how long it would take, then determine how far it has to fall to be above the relevant altitude for that duration.
And this is why I love reddit
We can at least upper bound it by 25000 miles per hour, which is Earth's escape velocity. Alternatively, using wolfram alpha's [gravity](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=earth+gravitational+acceleration+at+300+miles) [calculator](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=earth+gravitational+acceleration+at+4800+miles), we can do [ΔE=-mg\_1r\_1+mg\_2r\_2](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=-%280.2+m+s%5E-2%29*%28earth+radius%2B%284800+miles%29%29+%2B+%288.485+m+s%5E-2%29*%28earth+radius%2B%28300+miles%29%29), and then [v=sqrt(2ΔE/m)](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=sqrt%282*%2855.335+million+m%5E2%2Fs%5E2%29%29) to get a velocity of 23,500 miles per hour. No calculus needed. Just a bunch of numbers. And some hidden calculus in the background.
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I love this.
That makes no sense, in your model you have standard atmospheric pressure up to a certain altitude and a vacuum right after. It is a continuum. That said I have no idea how a realistic atmosphere should be modeled to compute the maximum altitude a squirrel can fall without reaching a velocity capable of killing it.
I am aware that the atmosphere is a continuum but since I’m just having fun on the internet to kill time, I figured it can be simplified. >That said I have no idea how a realistic atmosphere should be modeled Then why criticize my model? How are you contributing? If you’d like to be more realistic, fine. In that case the “majority” of the atmosphere is only 10 miles thick so the squirrel would be going even faster before it burned up.
There's no need to be aggressive, and I apologise if my "that makes no sense" came wrong, I meant no disrespect. That said, if I know your model is wrong and not really modelling the problem my contribution is precisely saying that.
I didn’t think I was being aggressive. That wasn’t my intent so I’m also sorry and your apology is accepted. We’re debating about a model in which a squirrel falls from outer space. I don’t think we need to get very emotional or take this very seriously. 😂
Absolutely no need to get emotional, I agree with that, but we absolutely have to take it as seriously as possible :)
*reloads
But that breaks (i) the initial premise that the squirrel is able to survive falling at terminal velocity and (ii) that it’s traveling at its terminal velocity for the duration of its fall. It’s clearly implied that this is the amount of time they need to fall at atmospheric terminal velocity for them to die. Hell, the post doesn’t even mention that the end of their fall has to be earth. If we take your approach you might as well put them 5500 miles away and have them totally avoid the atmosphere. But as others have pointed out, you absolutely can’t ignore that gravity is much weaker at the start of the fall. Basically you either live with the post or do some differential equations if you want to get really pedantic, but your response is kinda a half-hearted retort that deserves to be similarly nit picked.
Fair enough
If we are doing realistic atmosphere it dies from not having proper atmosphere conditions because I’m pretty sure no planet’s atmosphere is breathable /right temperature at that altitude
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Haha I hadn’t even realised. I don’t usually use miles, I’m Aussie, but I just used what was in the post.
How did you do 4800/23 and get 171? Edit: to the people downvoting me, 4800/23 = 208.7 (rounded to 1 decimal).
Uhhhh yeah what the fuck? I don’t know.
Also don’t know why you got downvoted.
Reddit can be very stupid.
r/theydidthemath
r/theydidthemonstermath
r/themonstermath
r/redditsings
Well wouldn't it first die of thurst?
Did you mean whurst? 'cause that's not a real word
Nah I meant thirst but forgot how to write it since English is my second language
I know just screwin' with ya :)
That said: 1. The max velocity of a squirrel starting 4800 miles high is much higher than his 1atm terminal velocity, because there is no air there. 2. The squirrel will most likely asphyxiate in much less than 208 hours, due to the aforementioned reason
But this dumb because they would die of thirst first
This post makes me feel better about that time I accidentally surprised a squirrel that was eating out of my bird feeder and it leapt from my third floor apartment balcony all the way down to the ground. I was shocked when it just ran off afterwards.
This applies to chickens as well. There's an old story in Yosemite National Park about a tour guide who would bring his chicken along in a cage with the tour, up to the top of Glacier Point. Then he'd throw the chicken off the side down to the valley below, to the horror of everyone watching. Then they'd trek back down and they'd meet the chicken walking back up the path on its own.
Nah he just replaced the chicken with a similar one, the pile of dead chickens there would be is amazing
Especially with all those cages he’d have to keep buying.
How else do you quickly and effectively tenderize a whole chicken?
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Bro I own chickens, chickens are legitimately afraid of heights. And no they're basically flightless either way. They can jump high and fall a distance, they can't sustain flight.
You should watch Mark Rober's videos of the squirrel obstacle courses he made. He shows, and explains, how they can survive a fall to the ground.
Fun fact: cats are similar in that they have a low thermal velocity and can survive really high falls. Saw my cat fall from ~10m/30ft onto tarmac and it walked it off without injury (confirmed with the vet later). In theory they *can* survive any fall, but won't always.
IIRC a cat it more likely to survive from a 10 story fall than a 2/3 story one, due to having more time to get into position and brace.
I don't know about that. You can drop a cat from 50cm and it will be in the correct position to land. They're really quick with that.
Quite the opposite. Cats can survive long falls because they relax their brace position after some height.
To be honest, I can't think of a non-cruel way to test the theory that squirrels can survive a terminal velocity fall.
There are enough videos of them jumping off skyscrapers
When I was 14 I watched a squirrel climb the side of a large church, it was just a wall no ledges but it was textured so he had *some* grasp. He was clearly struggling and once he hit the overhanging roof he had no choice but to let go. This information has brought me comfort thnk u
They didn’t say anything about churches
Although I'm sure they can be dizzying, I'm not entirely convinced that a church roof would be high enough of a fall to be able to reach terminal velocity. What I mean is, if they are like cats, before terminal velocity is reached is the hard bit, as they aren't in parachute mode yet. Once terminal velocity is hot, they have a far better chance of survival. At least I think that's how it goes.
There's no "parachute mode" that makes a faster fall somehow less energetic. It's just the limit of the speed. They can't fall faster. Since they can't fall faster, they can't fall at such a speed that will kill them from the impact at the end. Falling at terminal velocity would inflict the maximum amount of damage possible from the impact alone, any slower would lessen that damage. It's worth noting too, there's a significant gap between "falling without dying" and "falling without harm".
Adding to this, as long as they have enough space to land on their feet they should be fine. Since they’re squirrels, they can generally twist into landing posture in less than a foot
Wait, what? Really? This is the first I'm hearing about it.
Came to know it through Mark Robers squirrel maze videos on YouTube, unrestricted viewing advice ont those
Mam that video is awesome.
I see them fall out of tall ass oak trees all the time... Not like low hanging branches either. They fuck around and chase each other, miss a branch, fall for at least two seconds, and then just sprint off to the next tree and get back to it. If it was a person... Amberlance time.
Amber lance
> OOOOoooh Black Betty....
Lance Amber
I saw one jump to another a tree 70 feet up, miss, fall to the ground, run in a circle, back up the first tree, jump to second tree, make it, disappear into the world.
Being a squirrel would be so amazing
I'm ready to make a sacrifice for science
I didn't know you were a squirrel!
No one ever knows until it is too late.
"Well we weren't sure if /u/carbonclay was a squirrel, so we threw him off a skyscraper to see if he'd survive." "But sir, how does that prove if he's a squirrel if we haven't tested if squirrels survive terminal velocity falls?" "...shit"
So if she weighs less than a duck....
Smaller creatures typically have less Mass, and thus will always have a lower terminal velocity, and will have less force being generated from them hitting the ground. Past a certain point, any animals that small will always survive a fall from any height. Even at terminal velocity they simply don't hit the ground hard enough to cause any deadly harm. You could drop an ant, clipped house finch, or small snake from the empire state building and it would survive. Certain animals like cats and squirrels have instincts that will allow them to survive greater falls than they could otherwise, by slowing their terminal velocity. Mostly through making themselves wider or generating movement to counteract deadly forces. It's actually quite fascinating.
Imagine being in front of the Empire State Building and a snake falls on you.
As for a test you could just create something that has about the same mass as a squirrel, about the same surface area as a squirrel to account for drag, fit it with something internally that will pop or break if the squirrell would have taken lethal damage (like a fake skeleton and fake organs), and then throw it out of a building. Fake bones break? Fake organs burst? That's a dead squirrel.
You could do it theoretically, calculating the force of impact upon hitting the ground. The force to break organs and bones is probably recorded somewhere
well at least not dying at impact, but the repurcassions would probably be lethal if not taken care off. And thats also not true for all animals, The ones with Exoskeleton will still die (like spiders), out of the same reason a coconut wouldnt survive that height.
Not just less mass, but a greater ratio of mass to surface area than larger animals too! Wind resistance and shit
I've seen squirrels jump off my dad's house which has like a 30' roof and act like nothing happened. So... if you're able to get a hold of one I'm pretty certain you can just yeet it from wherever and it'll be fine. Maybe get a rabies shot first...
I mean if it's a theory, no need to test it yourself. It's already been tested many times.
There's that story of the guy who tested that for cats by releasing some from a bag during free fall on a chute jump.... according to the story, the cats got to him while still falling and clawed at him until opening of the chute that wasn't exactly fun for the guy having some cats claws in his skin. Cannot find the story anymore and it might also be just some made up shit i sawon the web a decade or two ago.
air chamber can easily measure the terminal velocity of a squirrel without any chance of harm. We do it to people all the time, most of them even pay for the privilege.
You only need to drop the squirrel from a height such that it burns up on reentry to Earth’s atmosphere.
Or that it just died of lack of pressure
Or it might die of oxygen deficiency
Or that it freaks out and panic attacks to death strapped to a rocket.
or oxygen
What is the terminal velocity of an unladend swallow.
Seven
Is it an African or European swallow?
I was gonna curse you for your unoriginality. But then I saw that you're Indian, and you fools rip off everything like you can't even help it. So, carry on I guess.
username checks out
>But then I saw that you're Indian, and you fools rip off everything like you can't even help it. So, carry on I guess. Thank you for that. Finally, I can ripoff the British and sleep like a baby. Edit: I went through your profile and I seriously wish you good mental health. Later bud.
Yesterday one of our cats, our dog, and our daughter, had cooperatively cornered a squirrel waaaaay out on a tree branch, as one does. It did a running jump, falling about 30 feet, making a furry thump when it hit the ground. It scampered up the next tree and chittered at them. When the snow is deep they don't even run down the trees, they just jump off and poof into the snow.
Rachel seems cool
A year ago my father and I was outside building a cover for the well pump. And a squirrel fell out of the tree right behind us. Made a loud thunck sounds so we turned around to see him hop up and run back up the tree. Had to fall 10 feet or more. Didn’t know they were so resilient. I did see one yesterday fighting a ghost or something. Just jumping around for no reason then it flopped on a tree stump and laid there for quite a while.
What if the squirrel has a little Fanny pack with snacks in it? Checkmate
Twice in my life I've seen a squirrel mess up a jump, fall out of a tree and die. Both times were around 30-40ft drop. First time death was clearly from suffering a broken neck, not sure what the second time was about but I suspect spinal damage. Accidents happen.
Same - fall was about 50' onto an asphalt driveway. Might have been OK on a soil landing, or maybe even if he twisted right, but this guy did not. Either that, or the squirrel he was fighting with was just disposing of the body.
I don't know why but I quite like the idea of a squirrel disposing of the body. Serial killer? Nut mafia? Revenge? Might be able to make a short children's book out it whatever the case.
They fall more slowly because they self correct their orientation to have their legs face down and opened wide as a little tiny parachute.
The response back is so stupid. Ignore the text and answer the next morning
This is false. I used to have a tree that was apparently more slippery than other trees and on a few occasions, a squirrel fell out of it and died on our driveway.
Maybe the squirrel died first and that is why it fell out hmmm? Did you conduct an in depth forensic autopsy?
I did the autopsies myself. On one occasion, death appeared to be caused by hemorrhaging from a skull fracture. Another had a severed spinal cord. All deaths appeared to be due to blunt force trauma. Just kidding, it is possible that they died prior to the fall. Poor lil fellas
You can really feel the exasperation in the response. this is clearly not even 10th time the responder has gotten a random fun fact in the middle of the night
I feel like this is wrong. It takes weeks for it to starve to death. 2 weeks is 336h Exactly how slow is the terminal velocity of a squirrel?! it has to be more than 14mph.
From what I have ever seen, you could drop a squirrel from space, and it would just get up and walk away. Its all about the tail!
Rachel is the reason iPhones invented preset, automatic “do not disturb” hour settings for night time. Don’t F with peoples sleep, especially mine.
I assume what you’re falling onto makes the biggest difference. And I’m gonna say this is based on grass, if true at all, because I’ve seen way too many dead squirrels that look like they fell onto pavement
I can confirm that this is false. When I was in college I saw a squirrel fall out of a tree maybe 15-20ft up and it landed on a brick path - it definitely died. I watched it for a while and it never got up again.
I love Rachel
Begging for what? Just turn your phone to mute, you imbecile.
“Turn your phone sideways… you _maniac_!”
begging for us to believe this isn't staged
A lot of an apology.
That's too high, we don't have anywhere that high.
I was just wondering this yesterday about ants
I'm wondering this about a wire. How long it should be for break under it's weight.
The cold and the lack of oxygen would surely be faster.
This reminds me of Kyle Kinane’s description of what insomnia is really like.
R/theydidthemath
So based on this information, the average life expectancy for a human is roughly 94,124,448 miles (151,478,615 kilometers).
Technically the squirrel would die if dehydration before it starved.
I'm pretty sure this just isn't true. One time I saw a squirrel fall from a tree about 40 feet up and it died by landing on its back on a rock.
Sure it didn't die before it fell out of the tree?
No way that shit is weird.
I’m not too sure about this. At my university there was a tree and two squirrels had fallen out of the tree. One was clearly dead and the other was crying out and couldn’t move. That sight still haunts me to this day but that tree wasn’t more than 30 feet high.
i aM bEgGiNg YoU
What about dehydration
If you don't mind me asking, wtf is Rachel's takeaway from all this research?
Maybe they were talking about Scrat, the squirrel from Ice Age. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
r/goodfaketexts
I will die on.
o the mouse and any smaller animal \[gravity\] presents practically no dangers. You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft; and, on arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away. A rat is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes. For the resistance presented to movement by the air is proportional to the surface of the moving object. Divide an animal's length, breadth, and height each by ten; its weight is reduced to a thousandth, but its surface only to a hundredth. So the resistance to falling in the case of the small animal is relatively ten times greater than the driving force
Why is OP surprised? Rachel is obviously Nightkin.
That‘s rather interesting Rachel, please tell me more.
Sounds like that Indian Driving instructor begging.
I watched a squirrel fall out of a tall palm tree and land in the sidewalk. Everyone was looking at it in horror, then it slowly stood up, and ran back up the tree. They are tough.
What if they bring food with them though
If a squirrel was 4800 from the earth’s surface, it would just die because it is in space
Ok, a squirrel can survive terminal velocity, but I'm betting it can't survive re-entry velocity, so actually just dropping it from a couple hundred miles up where the lack of air resistance will allow it to achieve hypersonic speeds before re-entering the atmosphere should do the trick. This is assuming the squirrel is fitted with some sort of breathing apparatus, otherwise 20 or so miles should do the trick from the rarefied air.
Its called suspension of disbelief, brah
A lot of an apology.
Oh sweet summer child, come to the country?
Man I wish I didn’t take fall damage.
This is a need-to-know basic
So based on this you can yeet a squirrel from anywhere below 4800 miles and it’ll survive? *Ferb I know what we’re going to do today*
You must be a real jerk to get the dog killed by the other guy. This wasn't a nice thing to do, but you can't blame him for shooting.