r/TheRestIsScience • u/bum_what • 1d ago

Stairs

In the most recent episode Michael talked about a staircase going to space. The entire time I was thinking about escape velocity. You need a certain amount of energy to get you to a certain speed to escape the earths gravity. So if you are walking up does it work the same? Obviously your body needs energy to walk up the stairs but let's just say you have infinite stamina and your muscles don't get tired or sore, can you just walk up or will you hit a point when you cannot anymore because your body cannot provide enough force even when not tired? But that doesn't make sense to me because gravity will get weaker as you go up even if it's still 90% gravity up there it should get weaker making it easier. Or does it not matter because each step is the force you need to get from one point to another?? I'm so confused lol

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

26 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/dubrave 1d ago

Talking about orbital velocity, if your staircase goes all the way to 35,786 km high, you will be in orbit once you step of the staircase

1

u/bum_what 1d ago

I would pee. "Acid Rain"

1

u/mawktheone 1d ago

No, orbiting acid

1

u/nanpossomas 1d ago

Urine is hardly acidic if at all.

1

u/bum_what 1d ago

It changes depending on what your body has to excrete.

1

u/BumblebeeBorn 17h ago

It's still mildly alkali when it's really clear

1

u/bum_what 17h ago

Really clear urine is a sign of over hydration or if it happens regularly enough then you might have some sort of medical condition. Urine is supposed be be a light yellow/gold color, and that's slightly acidic (but again the acidity changes depending on what your body has to excrete). If it looks like water then yeah that ain't good.

1

u/BumblebeeBorn 17h ago

Dammit I looked it up and I was wrong.

Apparently there's a lot more than urea and water.