this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2025
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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (10 children)

Aerospace engineer here. To levitate, the force of the exhausted mass flow (F=ṁ×v) has to equal the pull of gravity (F=m×g) on your body. The gravity of earth is g=9.81N/kg. Wikipedia says the average body mass is 62kg. It also says the bladder capacity of an adult is about 400ml, and I'll assume the density to be 1kg/l. You want to levitate for 2 seconds, so your mass flow needs to be ṁ=0.4kg/2s=0.2kg/s. If you rearrange the equation, you get v=m×g/ṁ=62kg×9.81N/kg/(0.2kg/s)=3041m/s.

So if you manage to pee with a velocity of about 3km/s, you can levitate for 2 seconds with an average sized bladder.

To achive that, your "exhaust" must be clenched to a diameter of about 0.29mm. This gives a cross-section of 0.066mm² or 6.6×10^-8m². Multiply that with the velocity of 3041m/s and you again get your flow of 0.2l/s.

Of course, during those 2 seconds you loose mass and therefore, earth's pull on you gets less and you start to accelerate to about 0.23km/h, reaching a height of 4cm. If you took your special bladder to space, we can use the rocket equation to calculate that this stunt would accelerate you to 3041m/s×ln(62kg/61.6kg)=19.7m/s=71km/h

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Will the density of my pee affect this?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Yes, higher density means you exhaust more mass during those 2s, and therefore you don't have to pee so fast.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

frantically starts drinking heavy water

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