World record height2.45 m
48.5AA battery lengths
12.3Dinner forks
Javier Sotomayor, Salamanca 1993; also holds Olympic record at 2.39 m
Photo from Wikimedia Commons
Olympic High Jump Record
2.45 meters straight up, defying gravity with style/Sports
The men's high jump world record of 2.45 meters has been held by Javier Sotomayor since 1993, an astonishing mark that has survived three decades of athletic advancement. For reference, 2.45 meters is about the height of a doorframe plus half a meter. Sotomayor clears this using the Fosbury Flop technique, arching his back over the bar while his center of mass actually passes below it, a beautiful exploit of physics.
Measurements
Olympic record height2.39 m
6.97Oscar statuettes
6.64Hip widths
1.7 trillionthsSaturn orbit radii
Charles Austin, Atlanta 1996
Approach speed7.5 m/s
15Escalators
652,174Bamboo growths
2.2 hundredthsSpeeds of sound
~27 km/h on the curved approach run
Gravitational PE at peak1,800 J
3.3 thousandthsHighway car crashes
3 sextillionUV photons
18 trillionFirefly flashes
~75 kg athlete raised ~2.45 m; mgh ≈ 1,800 J
Ground contact at takeoff1.5 tenths s
150 millionCPU clock cycles
58.8 billionthsLunar months
47.5 millionthsMicrocenturies
Duration of the final takeoff foot contact with the ground