You don’t feel the Earth spin because you, the atmosphere, skyscrapers, and everything else are spinning along with the Earth at the same constant speed.
It’s the same sensation as when you’re riding in a car or flying in a plane – as long as the ride is going smoothly. A jumbo jet flies at about 500 miles per hour – that’s about 800 kilometers an hour – about half as fast as the Earth spins at its equator.
But if you close your eyes, you don’t feel like you’re moving at all. And when the flight attendant comes by and pours coffee into your cup, the coffee doesn’t fly to the back of the plane. That’s because the coffee, the cup and you are all moving at the same rate as the plane.
Likewise, Earth is moving at a fixed rate – and we’re all moving along with it. Now imagine being on the jumbo jet again – think about what happens when the pilot suddenly speeds up or slows down the plane. You sometimes sense this change as a feeling of being pushed into your seat. In the same way, if the Earth were suddenly to speed up or slow down, you would definitely feel it.
But as long as Earth spins steadily – and moves at a constant rate in orbit around the sun – you as an earthly passenger move right along with it.
If the earth suddenly started to speed up we’d fall over backwards, and we’d have to lean into the direction of the motion to stand. If the earth were speed up enough that it spun once every hour and twenty minutes, we would fly off its surface. The next time you’re in a car or a plane traveling at a constant speed, close your eyes and try to feel that you’re moving. You won’t be able to tell.
Ancient humans noticed that the stars, and the sun and the moon all appeared to move above the earth. Because these people couldn’t feel the earth move, they logically interpreted this observation to mean that the earth was stationary and the “heavens” actually physically moved above us.
With the exception of the beliefs of ancient Greek scientist Aristarchus, who first proposed a heliocentric (“Sun centered) model of the universe, this geocentric (“Earth-centered”) idea was upheld for a long time. It would be Copernicus’s 16th Century heliocentric model that, although it was not without errors, would eventually convince the world that the earth spun on its own axis and that it moved around the sun.
Our thanks to:
Dr. Ed Prather
Montana State University, Bozeman
Department of Physics
Bozeman, MT
Dr. George Tuthill
Montana State University
Department of Physics
Bozeman, MT
…
I would like to thank you for the endeavors you have produced in publishing this article. I am trusting the same finest perform from you from the long term too. In fact your fanciful writing abilities has inspired me to begin my very own blog site now….
I tried many times to learn about this topic.I tried in many sites like wikipedia at last i found at google. I am very happy to know about it
Would you explain.. if i throw a ball above the sky at 90 degree why cannot it just moves ahead, instead it just come straight to me..
Oswin,
The displacement due to the Earth’s rotation is called the Coroilis force. In the case of a ball thrown straight up, the Coroilis force is probably negligible. But if it were a bullet, it’s a different story, with the maximum displacement taking place at the equator yet with no displacement at the north and south poles. Read what Professor Berezovsky has to say at http://www.quora.com/If-someone-shoots-a-bullet-straight-up-into-the-air-and-doesnt-move-what-will-happen.
Bruce
What if the earth stop moving would we not be able to move
well the example given above regarding the plane is vague, we are not inside the earth, we are on the earth, if the circumference of the Earth is 40,076 km and earth rotates to its original position in 24 hours, then if we do a simple calculation per sec earth rotates 464 meters, i.e. nearly half a kilometer.
when an air hostess fills our cup,it doesnt spill coz the air inside the plane is not in motion. will the same thing happen when we remove the top of the plance and try to fill the cup, I think no…
if a wind blows at a speed of 464 meters per second then it is a hurricane, and we dont feel such thing on the surface of earth… surface of the earth and not inside the earth….
Infact sometimes i see wind blowing in the same direction as the earth rotation. strange isnt it… atmosphere is not moving with us its running ahead of us…LOL….. :)
can we control the speed of earth and drive our earth in a direction we want? can we increase or decrease the speed of earth as we need?