If I were standing on top of a 5 story building that is inside a large rotating drum (space ship), and I stepped off the edge, what would happen? Would I fall?
Yes, but you'd shoot straight off into space while the building would continue to rotate. The building would either press into you while you fell, or move away from you depending on it's orientation to you relative to the direction of spin. The smaller the drum the more pronounced this effect will be and a thick atmosphere would dampen this effect.
Thanks
Except for that 'shooting off into space' part, obviously.
Gah. So much to unpack here.
Are you in zero G i.e. space? Air is filling the spaceship?
The key is what the building is doing relative to the spaceship. If you, the spaceship, and the building are all moving at the same velocity (presumably you are), and you "stepped off" (whatever that means in zero G), then you would float *very* slowly towards the edge of the spaceship.
I think you need to give us some more data points. In particular:
Is there gravity? No. The drum is spinning to simulate gravity in deep space.
What is the relationship of the building and spaceship to the gravity?
What is the relationship of the building to the spaceship? It's attached to the inside of the drum.
If you were inside the International Space Station (your spacecraft example) and you were standing on top of a car (same as a building that you referenced and you stepped off the top of the car, no you would not "appear" to fall. Why because the ISS, the car and you are all falling together -- so you would sense zero gravity and float, just like the ISS is floating in space because it is always falling, the car and yourself.
Argh, argh, no, don't make me re-visit rotating reference fields...
Okay, I don't have to. Wikipedia's entry on the Coriolis effect has a nice animation that shows it; you're the black ball. You would "fall" off the building, but you would appear to swoop off to one side as you fell. Depending on where the building is located, you might seem to zoom away from it, or zoom sideways parallel (or at an angle to) its wall, or you might get pressed into the wall, which might give you enough friction to save your life (depending on how fast you fall on that space station).
Haven't put pencil to paper on this one, but I believe that when you step off the building, you will continue in a straight line at the local velocity of the building at the moment you take leave of it, in free fall. The building and the inner surface of the drum, however, will continue in uniform circular motion at the angular velocity of the drum. This means that building and inner edge of drum will accelerate towards the drum axis of rotation while you move at constant velocity. As viewed by a horrified observer on the building roof, you will appear to accelerate towards the drum inner edge uniformly: She will see you fall.
Gravity generated inside a rotating drum or ring will be less as you approach its center (or reduce the radius). There are calculations you can find on the web about the amount of gravity generated based on the radius of the drum and the speed at which it rotates.
a=ω2r
a=acceleration of the fake "gravity" called centrifugal force.
ω is the angular velocity of the ring or space station
r is the radius of the ring
This is a handy site that allows writers to plug in desired numbers and determine the radius and and angular velocity for the spinning ring or drum on a space ship to generate a particular amount of "gravity." It also indicates when the values would result in considerable discomfort (such as motion sickness) to its occupants.
https://www.artificial-gravity.com/sw/SpinCalc/
One thing that is almost never mentioned in books that take place in outer space with gravity generated within a ring or drum in a ship or space station is that, unless the radius is very large, you'd get a noticeable Coriolis effect. Objects would appear to deflect sideways antispinward as they fall to the floor. The distance which the object (or in this case, your falling person) would deflect would be based on the tangential velocity. The speed at which they fell would depend on the centrifugal force, which would increase as they grew closer to the "ground."