Your favorite pony is falling from the sky

[Rainboom Dash 1,056]

Run up and try to catch her.

[Falsey 44]

I would attempt to position a sufficiently soft nearby object underneath them. Success chances are approximately 3.7%.

[Suprly 18]

Use my body as a pillow, and If I die...

Worth it! At least I saved a pony that can bring cheer into the world!

[Denim&Venöm 19,424]

We both die. Her from impacting the ground at terminal velocity, me from getting crushed trying to save her. 

 

Man, why do you have to be such a downer. 

[yayayayayala 1,668]

Pinkie falling from the sky? Silly, if that was the case, she is not falling from the sky, but chasing the ground. 

 

Plus i need not lend needless assistance to Lord Pinkie, as she clearly can just stop pretending gravity is a real thing to her being, as she see's fit. 

 

However, assuming she wants to have fun and wishes me to roleplay, and considering all the other considerations that come with Pinkie being within any distance of me inside this reality, i will just pull a giant super soft pink marshmallow out of my hair and let her land on it, because i can, and she will thoroughly enjoy said marshmallow landing.

 

Then we will eat it, just because.   

And that is exactly why I wouldn't have to actually catch her! :3 Even if she was unconsciously falling, I'd just have to yell at her to wake up (with her own humongous bullhorn) and she'd do the rest.

[An Unknown Pony. 370]

Heres what i'll do

*Sets up an Trampoline*

 

Tadah..

[Guest]

Nothing. After all, the Sunsets every day..  

[Castle_Cross 331]

HEY FLUTTERS!! THOSE WINGS ARE FOR SOMETHING YOU SILLY!!

[PROJECT: Simon 3,955]

Fluttershy can fly. Nothing to worry about
 
*Fluttershy crashes*
 
Oh.. no..

 

​FLUTTERSHY DIED

 

Replay?  

[IJoinedForPonies 126]

I would run in the house, grab my temperputic matress. Then I throw it outside where I am going to land before catching Rainbow Dash in mid drop jumping off of the nearby brick wall.

[Miss.RariDash 44]

No! Rarity! I shall save you! 

 

I'd try and catch her, but Spike would probably beat me to it. 

[UnusedAccount 15]

..

Edited October 26, 2024 by UnusedAccount
privacy

[Jack Dirt 81]

Heres what i'll do

*Sets up an Trampoline*

 

Tadah..

That may backfire dude. She may fall through. But if she doesn't you would have to wait a few for her to fully quit bouncing.

[An Unknown Pony. 370]

That may backfire dude. She may fall through. But if she doesn't you would have to wait a few for her to fully quit bouncing.

If the trampoline is not long enough I'll just fly up and catch her while she's at the air.if I'm at the ground I'll catch her with my hands.

Edited November 1, 2014 by Sir Daniew

[Malinter 3,064]

*Mac falls from the sky, lands on his hooves and walks out of the giant crater he made without a scratch*

 

Maud: Impact against the ground doesn't hurt us like it does other ponies.

Me:But what about the speed, gravity, intertia, that kinds stuff?

Maud: Only unicorns believe in that.

Me: ...oh yeah, I forgot.

Edited November 1, 2014 by Shire Pony Malinter

[Time Shield 402]

Realistically, I couldn't expect to do much. The only real thing I could do is shout for the 30 seconds and hope my shouts wake Twilight up, at which point she could teleport to safety.

 

If it was my OC Time Shield, he would probably just jump back in time to prevent the fall from happening in the first place.

[Ash Windheart 167]

I would use wings to save Rainbow Dash and then she would respect me as a pony!

[Blue Moon 6,341]

Why not butterflies? They seemed to work for Fluttershy in The Cutie Mark Chronicles, so I suppose with enough butterflies, anything could be picked up. Actually, why aren't butterflies used more often if they have falling equine catching capabilities?

Edited November 1, 2014 by Blue Moon

[Aurelion Star 434]

That may backfire dude. She may fall through. But if she doesn't you would have to wait a few for her to fully quit bouncing.

that's is the most idiotic way i have ever read in this topic.

 

I like it.

It made laugh so hard XD

[Jack Dirt 81]

that's is the most idiotic way i have ever read in this topic.

 

I like it.

It made laugh so hard XD

what do you mean exactly?

[Invincible 2,092]

Pinkie pie isn't falling from the sky unconsciously, she's pushing it away from the ground and dozes off (even pinkie needs her sleep).

 

Also Isaac Newton's got nothing on her, physics and pinkie don't mix.

[Omega Centauri 317]

Well from a purly scientific view there is nothing you can do. 30 seconds is to quick to grab them via plane or helicopter, and if I only have 30 seconds to catch them then they are falling at terminal veolocity and are therefore doomed.

 

So since there is nothing I could realisticly due thanks to the time limit, I would just gamemodeC up to her, place her into my inventory, and then release the prettiest mare ever once we are safely on the ground.

What this guy said... :/

 

Luna's fucked.

[Horse 63]

I would run as quickly as I could to catch her, while screaming, "FLY, SCOOTALOO!!!  YOU CAN DO IT!!!  YOU CAN FLY!!!"

[gamecubeguy214 2,512]

Twi? She's got wings. Well, if she didn't I'd yell for her to.. disable fall damage? Sorry, I haven't been a fan of the show for a while.

[FortyTwo42 1,287]

Well from a purly scientific view there is nothing you can do. 30 seconds is to quick to grab them via plane or helicopter, and if I only have 30 seconds to catch them then they are falling at terminal veolocity and are therefore doomed.

 

So since there is nothing I could realisticly due thanks to the time limit, I would just gamemodeC up to her, place her into my inventory, and then release the prettiest mare ever once we are safely on the ground.

This post has inspired me. I'm going to find out just how much deceleration a pony will experience, so we know once and for all whether it is possible for the pony to survive, or if they're utterly doomed.

 

Note: I'm ignoring air resistance, because that makes everything far, far more complicated. I'm also assuming you can somehow catch the right at the start of the 30 second interval, so you can use that whole time to decelerate the pony.

 

BEGIN MATH:

 

First, we need to determine how high above the ground the pony is. Let's say they're falling at terminal velocity (which is about 200kph, or 56m/s for a human. For some strange reason, terminal velocity values for ponies don't seem to exist, so we'll just use the human values). We also know we have 30 seconds before they hit the ground. So, speed is 56m/s and time is 30s.

 

Since they're moving at a constant speed if they're at terminal velocity, we can use the equation v=s/t to find the distance from the ground (v is speed/velocity in m/s; s is distance/displacement in metres; t is time in seconds). Rearranging the equation gives s=vt, so now we just plug in numbers. s=56×30, so s=1680m. We now know the falling pony must be 1680m above the ground.

 

Now, we can find out the acceleration the pony experiences. They are initially falling at 56m/s, and at the end they come to rest (their speed is 0). They will be decelerated over a distance of 1680m. The handy physics equation we want here is v₁²=v₀²+2as. (v₀ is the initial velocity, 56m/s. v₁ is the final velocity, 0. s is the distance traveled, 1680m. a is the acceleration in m/s², which is what we're solving for.)

 

Rearranging the equation for a gives you a=(v₁²-v₀²)/(2s). So now we plug in numbers into the equation, giving a=(0-56²)/(2×1680), so a=-0.9333m/s². The negative sign is expected, it indicates the acceleration is in the opposite direction to the velocity.

 

So, the falling pony will need a deceleration of 0.9333m/s² to come to rest at the ground. 1 g is equal to 9.81m/s², so to save the pony, only about 0.1 g is required. You don't even need to accelerate them more than 1 g at all, so the pony is completely safe if you can get to them in time.

 

 

 

But... what if you can't get to them with 30 seconds to spare? I'm nowhere near done yet! To answer this question, rather than repeating the above process with different values of t, I'm going to derive a formula that will give you the acceleration required to save the falling pony, a, in terms of the time remaining until the pony would hit the ground, t.

 

We still have velocity as 56m/s, so the first part is rather simple. Using the formula v=s/t, we rearrange it to get s=vt. We know v, so we substitute its value, 56m/s, but we don't know t, so we leave it as t. This gives us s=56t.

 

Now we come back to our larger equation, v₁²=v₀²+2as. Since we know s=56t, we can substitute that into the equation, giving us v₁²=v₀²+112at. Now, rearranging the equation for a gives us a=(v₁²-v₀²)/(112t). We know v₀=56m/s and v₁=0, so putting in these values gives us a=(0-56²)/(112t), which simplifies to a=(-28)/t

 

So, there you go. The equation a=(-28)/t will tell you how much acceleration is required to save the falling pony in terms of how long the pony has until they hit the ground. Putting in t=30 gives us 0.9333 as previously calculated, so unless I stuffed up somewhere this equation works. Now, let's see how things would go if you only had half the time to catch the pony, so they had 15 seconds before hitting the ground. That would make t=15, and a will turn out to be -1.8667. This is still far less than 1 g. In fact, you'd only need more than 1 g of acceleration if they had about 3 seconds or less left. The equation describes a reciprocal function, so as the time becomes much less than 3 seconds, the deceleration required will begin to rapidly rise. Remember, the negative sign indicated the acceleration is in the opposite direction to velocity. If you're only concerned about how much acceleration is needed to save them, you can just discard the negative sign.

 

Remember, this value assumes you're decelerating them at a constant rate. In order to do this, not only do you have to reach them hundreds of metres in the air, but you'd then have to match their speed of 56m/s downwards, and only then can you catch them and slow them down. If you catch them without matching their speed, you're not decelerating them evenly. They'll momentarily experience a much higher deceleration than required as to catch them. That is, if they don't just knock you out of the air as you try to do so. A pony hitting you at 56m/s is going to hurt.

 

So in conclusion, if you had 30 seconds left, whether or not it's physically possible to decelerate them in time without harming them isn't the issue. You're main issue is reaching them, matching their falling speed and decelerating them at a constant rate with only 30 seconds notice.