Honestly, the answer isn't quite as far as I thought so if someone wants to pitch in their advice that would be sweet.
So Gandalf falls for one minute, ten seconds. However he falls much faster than the balrog, as he catches up to him pretty quickly. So I couldn't use the figure for "how far a human in free fall travels in 70 seconds".
The balrog falls for 51 seconds before his(her?) interception with Gandalf, while Gandalf only falls for 17 seconds.
This, technically, means that the wizard falls three times faster than a balrog. I find that kind of off putting and not conducive to the badass figure I want to end up with. So I figure A) the balrog is trying to not fall a lot harder before Gandalf catches up to it and starts going stabby stabby, B) Gandalf probably used some magic to zoom down faster, and C) there's some slow motion going on for some seconds after the balrog falls, adding screen time to the difference.
So I just guestimated and figured that once Gandalf catches up to the beast, they fall only at 66% of the average rate of a falling human, while before he catches up he's falling at 133% the average speed. Again, those numbers are pure bullshit so if someone wants to do some better math, please do.
Human falling for 17 seconds = 2345ft (using this site.
Gandalf zoomie falling for 17 seconds = 2345x1.33 = 3118ft.
So by now Gandalf is traveling at human terminal velocity if not a little faster, as it takes a skydiver 15 seconds to reach terminal velocity. That means he's reached approximately 150mph at interception.
Human terminal velocity is 122mph, we'll say "balrog fighting Gandalf" terminal velocity is .66 of that so ~81mph.
The pair have 53 more seconds of falling, which at 81mph is 6296ft.
3118ft + 6269ft =..........
9414 feet or 1.783 miles.
Again, I'm bad at math, so if someone has some advice that'd be good.
Submitted January 11, 2018 at 10:23AM by ThumYorky http://ift.tt/2DgQpy1
