Few things in life tickle the fancy of the male of the species like jumping up in an elevator that is going down. How many of you have not hoped that with just enough effort to avoid that embarrassing “Extreme pushing” fart, you could touch the top of the elevator with your head. People like Sheldon wouldn’t let the embarrassment of  post-rectal-discharge blow in the face (if you’ll pardon the expression) of a truly titanic effort (or… in extreme cases “effart”) but for most of us, the line must be drawn in the sand and we have to be happy with the knowledge that we may almost reach the top.

Science is a happy pursuit. I am currently in Venezuela which those of you close to a globe, or atlas will notice is closer to the equator than, say, Bolivia. So science would ask “Do Venezuelans have an advantage to… say… Bolivians when it comes to elevator jumping?” The laws of physics dictate that the centrifugal force on an object is at it’s maximum when that object is at the equator of the rotating object.

Thusly… a human who attempts to fling himself upward should have a technical advantage at the equator over someone in, say, Bolivia. And besides, Bolivians as a race are hopelessly inept at jumping, despite their prowess at other… um… shall we say “explosive” sports such as weight lifting and cat juggling. As a matter of fact, should cat juggling become an Olympic sport, the Bolivians are expected to take the gold medal. Elevator jumping is another story completely.

So the only thing that remains to be seen is, if you take a Venezuelan and a Bolivian and put them in, say, a biathlon of near-Olympic events which would be victorious?  Would a 6.0 in cat juggling be enough to pull up a 5.2 in elevator jumping? It hardly seems likely given the inevitable deterioration in skills with the blood loss that comes with cat juggling. Mind you… consistently bumping one’s head on the top of an elevator (unless it’s padded with the ACME Elevator Ceiling Padding) is likely to bring about a substantial drop in performance as well. The only way to determine the outcome is to make these two events the next addition(s) to the summer Olympics. Count Jacques Rogge, are you listening?