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falling down is something that nobody
really likes even if you think you like
skydiving or bungee jumping or BASE
jumping you don't really or at least
your body doesn't really because that
thrilled that you feel while you're
falling is kind of more like an
instinctual panic built up over millions
of years of evolution that's trying to
remind you of all of your ancestors that
have died doing what you think is fun
anyway this got me thinking about what's
the highest possible distance that you
can jump off of and fall from anywhere
in the world but before we get into that
we need to establish a very important
rule the distance of your fall needs to
be continuous and vertical meaning that
you can't just jump off of something hit
something else and bounce off and
continue falling some more we're looking
for the longest and cleanest vertical
jump you can make anywhere in the world
so let's look around a bit at some of
the contenders the tallest man-made
building that you could jump off of is
theoretically the Burj Khalifa in Dubai
at 828 meters tall your fall from the
top down to the bottom would take
approximately 20 seconds of continuous
freefall but that's absolutely nowhere
near the tallest height that you can
take a jump from because nature
continues to totally dominate this
category you might think that the
obvious answer here would be Mount
Everest but that's just absolutely not
the case
remembering our major rule from earlier
about a strictly vertical freefall
eliminates Mount Everest from the
contention because while Everest does
have some pretty steep cliffs I mean
look at these the mountain is overall
pretty jagged in structure so if you
jump from the top you would just hit
another piece of rock die bounce off of
that and then make more of a tumbling
motion down the mountainside like this
that's not exactly what we're looking
for and there are cliffs elsewhere in
the world that offer significantly
higher free Falls than any of the ones
do on Everest one of these cliffs is
more like a super deep hole in the
Tionne gene cave of China there's a
shaft inside of this cave that plummets
down 1026 meters below in a directly
vertical
deeper than the Burj Kalifa is tall
theoretically you could jump into this
hole and freefall for roughly 24 seconds
in total complete darkness before
hitting the bottom but other natural
features will even outdo this one in
epicness if you're looking for the
absolute highest vertical drop to fall
from in the world then you need to
schedule a visit here on Baffin Island
in the Nunavut province of Canada it's
one of the most sparsely inhabited
places in the world but if you make the
trek out into the middle of nowhere to
the epicly named Mount Thor you'll
discover the single tallest confirmed
vertical cliff anywhere in the world
this cliff you see here is actually at a
105 degree angle so it's even steeper
than vertical human beings didn't even
successfully manage to climb up to the
top of it until 1985 but if you could
somehow get up there and jump off from
it you'll experience a truly vertical
freefall from 1250 meters above the
surface
that'll last for roughly 28 seconds long
before you impact the surface however I
said that this is only the tallest
confirmed vertical cliff in the world
owing to the extremely remote location
that it's located in there are other
cliffs scattered around none of it and a
Greenland that could potentially be even
higher but they've never been identified
so we have no idea right now but there
is actually one confirmed cliff that's
actually a higher vertical drop and it's
located around here in the far northern
portion of Pakistan a group of mountains
here called the trango towers offers up
a pretty spicy challenge to the tallest
vertical drop claim offered up from
Mount Thor the tallest mountain in the
group called great trango is widely
considered the most difficult mountain
in the entire world to climb and for
very very good reason because it
features a nearly vertical cliff that
plummets one thousand three hundred and
forty meters over the top the cliff
isn't quite literally as vertical as the
cliff on Mount Thor is so there's quite
a bit of cliff controversy and arguments
in the geography world over at status
but that's all for the Nerds to figure
out you came here because
you just care about the tallest drop so
if you made it to the top of great
trango and jumped off you're nearly
vertical fall would clock in at roughly
30 seconds long or two seconds longer
than a jump from the top of Mount Thor
would be Congrats
you've now discovered the highest
possible point and jump off and
experience a freefall from anywhere on
the Earth's surface but what about
outside of Earth
I mean cliffs exist elsewhere in the
universe right surely there must be a
cliff even higher up than anything we
have here on earth
and it turns out there are if you could
somehow make it over to Uranus or excuse
me
Uranus and then hop on over to Uranus is
moon Maranda you can discover a cliff
that's a whopping 20 kilometers high
that's a vertical cliff base more than
twice the height of Mount Everest is on
earth and you can also totally jump off
of it and survive because the gravity on
Maranda is way less than it is on earth
it would take you about 12 minutes to
jump off from the top of it before you'd
hit the bottom and you'd only be falling
around 124 miles per hour I mean that
still does sound pretty bad I guess but
all things considered if you had some
airbags you could probably end up making
it work out now I know what everybody is
going to say next
what about jumping out of airplanes that
definitely does count for a vertical
freefall so let's move on to these types
of jumps next a woman named vesna
vulovic currently holds the world record
for the tallest height ever survived
falling out of an airplane without a
parachute
I made an entire video already just
focusing on her incredible story but in
short she managed to survive a fall from
over 10,000 meters up in the sky after
her plane blew up and she did all of it
without a parachute she probably fell
for around 3 minutes and 25 seconds give
or take but that's far from the longest
free fall famously in 2012 this dude
named Felix Baumgartner and the team at
Red Bull Stratos broke the world record
for the world's highest freefall
Baumgartner rode in a capsule attached
to a balloon up to a freakishly scary
height of 39 kilometers above the
Earth's surface before he just jumped
out with nothing but a pressure suit and
a pair
shoots his freefall lasted for four
minutes in 19 seconds and his body
reached a speed of 840 3.6 miles per
hour becoming the first human being
whose body broke the sound barrier
without the assistance of any engine the
Red Bull team believed that his free
fall could have been extended safely to
anywhere between 5 minutes and 6 minutes
but he deployed his parachute a little
early instead just two years later
however in 2014 his freefall record was
broken by another dude named Alan
Eustace rather than going up in a fancy
capsule
Eustace just tethered himself to a
balloon flew up to a rediculous 41.4
km/h 37 thousand six hundred and sixteen
meters before he deployed his parachute
and it took him four minutes in 27
seconds to accomplish earning him the
title of the guy that's fallen the
farthest and the longest in all of human
history
his record still stands tall today but
the limit that humans can endear is
certainly even beyond that the Red Bull
Stratos team estimated that they could
potentially pull off a freefall pushing
into the six-minute range and the feats
of Baumgartner and Eustace have proven
that human bodies can endear drops from
the stratosphere and speeds that break
the sound barrier whatever the limit of
human freefall actually is it certainly
hasn't yet been reached and I'm certain
that the world record will continue to
be pushed upwards and broken in the
future by somebody that somebody may
even be watching this video right now
and I can only hope so if you're serious
about skydiving BASE jumping bungee
jumping where you really do want to
break the freefall world record one day
or you're just into anything that really
gets your adrenaline pumping you'll need
a serious understanding of everyday
physics and there's no better place to
learn about that than on brilliance with
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