Human lemmings

摘要

Try this next time you are strolling on a cliff. Toss a rock (the size of a blood orange is good) over the edge and begin to count. It falls at the speed of a tum-bling human so will reach 200km per hour after nine seconds, roughly the acceleration of a su-percar. Keep counting. If the cliff is sheer and tall, like the more dramatic ones above a Norwegian fjord, you should be able to tick off many seconds before hearing a distant crack. That is how long you might fly, unaided, before your soft flesh is mangled on the granite below.