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What would be the first causal factor responsible for me falling off a platform at a high enough velocity?

Physics Asked by Savy Blizzard on March 16, 2021

Suppose I am standing on some sort of platform close to the surface of earth.
This platform begins to accelerate very slowly horizontally with respect to my reference frame such that I don’t notice the shift in my inertia.

As the platform moves, I of course move with it because of my weight establishing friction between my feet and the surface of the platform.

Over time, as my velocity begins to increase, I surely wouldn’t be able to stand up on the platform forever. In which case, what would be responsible for me falling off the platform? Would it be the wind? Am I experiencing any other horizontal forces aside from the negligible acceleration?

If so, what if we performed the same thought experiment in a place with no atmosphere? At high enough speeds, with little to no acceleration, would anything cause me to fall off or would it appear as though the surface below the platform continues to move past me at an ever increasing speed?

Thanks!

One Answer

Yes, it would likely be the wind that causes you to fall off.

If there is no atmosphere, you would stay on the platform indefinitely, if the acceleration is indeed sufficiently low. This situation is no different from a uniformly accelerating spaceship, except what is accelerating you is not the force exerted on you by the seat you are sitting in but the friction between you and the platform.

I suppose if the platform is moving in one direction, it would eventually get far enough away from the planet that the gravitational acceleration would be too small (or even in the "wrong" (i.e. not downward) direction) to provide the necessary friction, but maybe that's outside the scope of what you were asking for.

If the platform is not moving in the same direction but always moving "horizontally" so as to maintain the same altitude, increasing its horizontal speed in the process, then eventually the platform would orbit the planet so fast that your weight would not be sufficient to provide the centripetal acceleration you need to stay on the platform, so you would eventually fly off. But to move in this way, in addition to its tangential (or horizontal) acceleration, the platform would need to accelerate toward the center of the planet by a non-negligible amount: the point you fly off is when this acceleration reaches $g$.

Correct answer by Puk on March 16, 2021

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