Veritasium Bungee Jumps!

All right, I'm here at the Karu bridge in, uh, New Zealand, where the first person threw themselves off this bridge with nothing but an elastic band tied around their legs. So I'm going to give it a shot today and, uh, find out what it feels to accelerate down at the acceleration due to gravity, 9.8 m a second squared.

Now, you can tell that I'm nervous by that cheesy grin in the idiotic wave. It's a long way down, Derek.

The worst part of bungee jumping is the half hour wait before you actually jump, and you have to watch other people. And, uh, well, they don't always make it look so enjoyable. Are you going to do it?

So, this is the true story. Actually, when I was about, uh, 7, I climbed out to the top of the high diving board in, uh, the local community pool. And then I got so scared by looking down that I backed down. Um, backed down the stairs rather than then jump off the high diving board. So this is, uh, my day for redemption.

Are you accelera good?

N: You kind of... yeah, but it'll be over before you know it, so enjoy every second.

So, the moment of truth. Would I put on a brave face? No, there's that cheesy... yeah, and there's the wave. There's the wave again. Oh, just get off the platform!

You can hear me count down here. Oh my [Applause] God! Like, yep, there's the wave again. That was freaking awesome! Just the experience when you leap off and you realize that you're falling and, uh, see that water rushing up towards you is, uh, absolutely incredible.

It's over before you know it, so it's not as scary as you would think. And, uh, I couldn't figure out what the acceleration was as I was going down, but you know it fell high. It fell very fast; very great increase in, in your rate of speed.

So, oh my God, that was fast! Loved it! Now, as silly as I may have looked, at least I wasn't as bad as this guy. A note to first timers: jumping feet first may seem less scary, but it's actually a bad idea.

Oh my God!