When Do We Weigh More: Going Up or Down in an Elevator?

Do our weight actually change when a lift goes up or down? Many people have felt it: as the lift begins moving upwards, their legs feel heavier. Conversely, when the lift slows down or glides downwards, the body feels lighter.

So when are we actually at our ‘heaviest’? Is it when the lift goes up or when it goes down?

The answer is not as straightforward as it might seem. Scientifically, our weight does not really change. However, the numbers on the scales can rise or fall briefly. The physics behind this is tied to how we define ‘weight’.

In physics, weight can refer to:

‘Standing perfectly still, everything can look the same. But as soon as the lift starts to accelerate or decelerate, you will get three different answers. That’s pure physics,’ explains Morales.

What is important to understand: your mass never changes, and Earth’s gravitational force inside a building is practically the same, whether on the lower floors or the upper floors.

What changes is only how hard the floor pushes your body upwards. And that is what the scale actually measures.

‘You cannot feel gravity. You really never can,’ says Jason Barnes, a physics professor from the University of Idaho.

For example, astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) remain under almost the same gravitational pull as on the surface—about 90 percent of its strength. Yet they feel weightless.

Why?

Because they and the space station are in a constant state of free fall around Earth. The station travels sideways at more than 27,000 km/h. As they fall, the Earth’s surface keeps curving away, so they continue to orbit without ever touching the ground.

Because the astronauts and the station fall together, the floor does not need to push them upwards. Without that upward push, they feel weightless.

On Earth, we feel heavy because the floor constantly pushes our bodies upwards to prevent us from falling due to gravity.