The sill of one of my windows reaches to about three inches below my hip bones. Beneath the window is 170 feet of air followed by ground.
These are sliding windows; sometimes I open the middle one and keep one hand on the inside (metal) frame of the other to balance myself as I lean out to look at things.
Every now and then, I wonder whether, should the window I’m balancing against pop out (no reason it should but humour me), I would pitch ass-over-teakettle and plummet to the ground below.
I’m not top-heavy or anything but wonder if the fact that everything above the waist and then some is above the sill level means that I could overbalance and fall out top half first. Which would be unpleasant.
I never was much good at physics. Am I pondering an impossibility? Am I only in danger of falling out if I’m on roller skates? On a treadmill?
If you have to lean on the sill with your hand you won’t require roller skates to fall out. When you lean, you’re shifting your weight away from your natural center of gravity. If it fell, and you didn’t react, I’m betting you might too. IANA physicist
Nothing impossible about falling out of a window, and no roller skates are required.
Your body has a center of mass (COM) which is commonly referred to as its center of gravity. It’s probably located behind your navel (or thereabouts) and you can influence its location a bit (e.g. it will move left when you move both your arms to your left side). If your COM stays inside the window, you won’t fall out; once it’s outside the window, you’ll need some form of restraint to avoid falling out.
Well, Given the sill’s several inches wide, assuming my feet remain flat on the ground, my COM would pretty much be on the sill or at the outer edge of the sill.
So I guess I’d best not open the window wide enough that both shoulders fit out at the same time. The chances of both panes falling out simultaneously are even slimmer than the chances of one doing so. I hope.