How does it feel when descending an elevator?
The elevator is an amazing, innovative and very useful invention. It was not possible to live or work in multistorey buildings if this ingenious machine was not invented.
It can take us to 20th or 100th floor in a few minutes. One need to enter this moving room, select the desired floor number and after closing the doors, the elevator takes the person to his/her desired floor in minutes. Certainly, this invention has made our life comfortable.
When the elevator ascends or descends, we feel uneasiness. A sensation in our stomach or head seems weird during the journey within an elevator but it is present there. The reason of this sensation is gravity. Gravity is a force that is present between any two objects which have mass. It is proportional to the multiplication of the masses of the objects and inversely proportionate to the square of the distance between them. Gravity is also present between us and the earth. We can stand on earth because of this force. It keeps everything which we see on earth, in the state we see them on earth.
According to the first law of Newton if an object is in motion it will continue in motion till other force is applied over it. On the other hand a stationery object will not move until a force is applied over it. While we are on earth, the forces acting on us are in balance and equilibrium, so we felt nothing. When the elevator descends the passenger in it feels dizziness for some seconds because of the first law of Newton.
Before starting of the elevator both the passenger and the elevator are stationery, so nothing happens. When the elevator begins descending, the passenger is still in the stationery position so he/she feels sudden weightlessness which causes dizziness as the body remains in the state of zero gravity during that time. After a few seconds the speed of the passenger and the elevator both becomes equal so the weird sensation also disappears. It again begins when the elevator halts as the elevator’s velocity becomes zero while the passenger is still in the moving state. He/she feels as if his/her weight has increased. So, he/she feels a sudden jerk. This all happens because of physics and our body mechanism. Our brain tries to balance us which causes the dizzying and weird sensation. Hence, science plays its role when we ascend or descend in an elevator. It doesn’t matter whether we know it or not but, it happens. However, if the elevator is very sophisticated and doesn’t start or halt suddenly, it can minimize the impact of that sensation.
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