Oct 7, 2008
Just for fun
Here is a question that I think is fun to think about. Because we are all in essence particles attached to the surface of the Earth which is rotating at a very fast rate, are our bodies just simply accustomed to the rotational force of the Earth? Basically, if the planet Earth were to instantly stop rotating to a halt, would everything essentially not 'hard' attached to the planets surface just suddenly go flying because of the momentum we have due to Earth's rotation?
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The earth is rotating at a speed of about 1100 miles per hour. At this rate, if it were to suddenly stop, everything else would continue to move. This would include rocks, soil, trees, buildings and even us. Everything would be swept up into the atmosphere.
--Mark Urbancic
Also as a note: it's not that our bodies are just "accustomed" to the speed. We don't feel it at all, although we are moving at the same velocity as the earth.
Think of being in a car going down the highway. Your car might be going 60 or 80 miles per hour, so naturally your body moves at the same speed. You, however, do not "feel" this velocity.
Earth Diameter = 12,756.32 km, One full rotation in 24 hours, so if we want to find the velocity of a point in the earth surface it will be:
(12,756.32 (Pi)km)/24 hours = 1,668.95 km/h. In my opinion it will be similar condition if you drive a superjet with 1669 km/h and suddenly had a crash, bring the speed of the jet to 0. Your body will have this speed and thrown along the surface of "stopped" earth.
What I think is very interesting is the role friction and gravity plays into this,
if the earth were to suddenly stop rotating, we would be "thrown" tangentially to surface of earth and smash, crash into things, until forces, friction, etc. bring our bodies to a halt..
and right now as we move with the surface, gravity and normal force of ground combine to make centripetal acceleration, so if earth were to stop rotating and us stop with it the apparent force of gravity would increase slightly because the v in v^2/r going to zero
Isn't this kind of like the common problem in physics courses about why someone can throw something in an airplane? We are just moving at the same speed as the earth.
I also find this to be pretty interesting to think about.
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