If your box contained some sort of platforms or bunkbeds in it, you could probably fit in quite a lot of people! But while they might not get crushed, it still would be kind of horrible…
I reckon most adults are less than 2m tall, could probably squeeze their shoulders into 50cm, and 50cm would give them enough breathing room from their back to beyond their nose. On that basis, in a 10m square you could lie 5 people down top-to-toe, and repeat that line twenty times across. If the box is also 10m tall, you could stack that formation 20 high too. If my maths is right, that would mean 2000 people, which sounds ridiculous! (Athough, when you think that a tube train carriage might be 2m tall and 2m wide, it starts to sound more reasonable…)
While the people in your mad, crowded box might not get crushed, there’s a risk they could suffocate, overheat or become dehydrated – don’t try it! It also reminds me, sadly, of pictures of Nazi concentration camps and slaving ships from a couple of centuries ago – people actually have tried to cram huge numbers of people into these tiny spaces, generally for horrible reasons 🙁
Are you GLaDOS? Expanding this question to be 10 metre cubed box, so we can put 3D people in there, I was reminded of crowd control and the dangers of crushing in a crowd. Apparently a four people per square meter begins to be dangerous.
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theowilson commented on :
You would be able to fit lots of humans into a 10 metre cubed box though!