Well this is getting complicating... we're gonna need average stiffness of the suspension... the tire pressure... how the people were distributed throughout the bus... Sandra Bullock's cup size... hmmmmmm
I'm just gonna put the short answer here. Mass matters for the landing... if you remember in the movie they landed and kept on going. The landing is part of the problem so only solving half the problem doesn't help. Why would you neglect air resistance? You rather have to consider that if you're not in a vacuum.
Actually mass does matter because a larger mass will affect the landing and the damage done to the surface(and the bus) when it lands. That definitely factors into this. I'm sorry I didn't explain that. I did take college physics and do realize that objects of different mass fall at the same rate (in a vacuum anyways). And since we're saying this the size of the bus matters if you need to calculate atmospheric effects... freeways aren't in vacuums. That's another thing to consider.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the fact that in Speed the bus couldn't go UNDER 70 mph... it could have been traveling much faster. Now I know that still does not make it very believable but is anyone willing to do the math to see what speed and incline are needed to jump a 50 ft gap? What's the average mass of a bus anyways?
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Well this is getting complicating... we're gonna need average stiffness of the suspension... the tire pressure... how the people were distributed throughout the bus... Sandra Bullock's cup size... hmmmmmm
I'm just gonna put the short answer here. Mass matters for the landing... if you remember in the movie they landed and kept on going. The landing is part of the problem so only solving half the problem doesn't help. Why would you neglect air resistance? You rather have to consider that if you're not in a vacuum.
Actually mass does matter because a larger mass will affect the landing and the damage done to the surface(and the bus) when it lands. That definitely factors into this. I'm sorry I didn't explain that. I did take college physics and do realize that objects of different mass fall at the same rate (in a vacuum anyways). And since we're saying this the size of the bus matters if you need to calculate atmospheric effects... freeways aren't in vacuums. That's another thing to consider.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the fact that in Speed the bus couldn't go UNDER 70 mph... it could have been traveling much faster. Now I know that still does not make it very believable but is anyone willing to do the math to see what speed and incline are needed to jump a 50 ft gap? What's the average mass of a bus anyways?