what if..

Incognito · Post by **Incognito** » Wed Feb 13, 2002 11:02 pm

What IF the earth stop spinning on its axis?

what do you think would happen?

im askin this beacuse we were discussin it in my physics class, and now im wondering about it..

sito · Post by **sito** » Wed Feb 13, 2002 11:11 pm

If it went from spinning to zero motion, I'd say it would be like what happens to a passenger when a car hits a wall at hgh speed. It would all shift at I think 65 000 mph? Far worse than any nuke or meteor, thats for sure. Hope this helps

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Wed Feb 13, 2002 11:13 pm

We would all suddently fly off of the planet into space.

The combination of the earth going around the sun and the earth spinning on it's axis is what gives us our gravity.

ghost · Post by **ghost** » Wed Feb 13, 2002 11:29 pm

We would lose our gravitational field, like MM said, plus one side of the earth would get very, very cold and the other would get very, very hot, to the point of having to re-engineer our living spaces to survive. That is, if we all survive, which would be unlikely. The shift in the weather would be something with which to contend too, since the heating/cooling of the earth determines high and low pressure in the atmosphere. Also consider the effect of the sun's gravitation pulling on bodies of water. High tides would be phenomenal, who knows when they'd stop?

Of course we ghosts wouldn't have to worry about such things, since we don't abide by standard Laws of Nature or Physics.

Qwijib0 · Post by **Qwijib0** » Wed Feb 13, 2002 11:32 pm

Actually, we wouln't lose our gravity, as it is the earth's mass which creates it. We WOULD, however go flying off if there were a sudden stop because our momentum would propel us off. if it were a gradual slowdown, half the earth would freeze, half would burn up... and we'd still be here.

brembo · Post by **brembo** » Wed Feb 13, 2002 11:33 pm

Gravity is a function of mass, totally. The spinning does in fact make the gravitational effect LESS. Centrifugal force literally translates into "center hating", centripetal, "center loving, latin terms, that I have prolly mangled. Trust me.

Jigga76 · Post by **Jigga76** » Thu Feb 14, 2002 12:53 am

The earth is round due to gravity. There's a thought.

MadDoctor · Post by **MadDoctor** » Thu Feb 14, 2002 12:55 am

The earth is round? What the .................

ghost · Post by **ghost** » Thu Feb 14, 2002 12:58 am

Oops, I stand corrected on the gravity thing, I was thinking of "artificial" gravity fields from the movies.

Deus ex Machina · Post by **Deus ex Machina** » Thu Feb 14, 2002 1:04 am

The planet Venus barely spins and it is round.

Gravity is purely a function of mass.

F= (Gxm1xm2)/r^2

poptom · Post by **poptom** » Thu Feb 14, 2002 1:18 am

We would suddenly become very heavy due to the loss of centrifugal force and slide along the ground at a high rate of speed from inertia. It would be very unpleasant.

Brent · Post by **Brent** » Thu Feb 14, 2002 1:53 am

sounds fun!

i will just transport up to my cloaked ship

AoDLiQuiD-M3tH · Post by **AoDLiQuiD-M3tH** » Thu Feb 14, 2002 11:20 am

gravity is decided by mass. if the world stopped spinning it would not burn up, half the earth is facing the sun for 10 hours a day.

Grimson · Post by **Grimson** » Thu Feb 14, 2002 11:28 am

part of us would have good tans.

rhcowles · Post by **rhcowles** » Thu Feb 14, 2002 11:17 pm

Gravity is directly proportional to the mass of the objects and inversely proportional to the distance between them. The earth is approximately 24000 miles around the equator. It completes one rotation in 24 hours. Therefore we are moving at approximately 1000mph (at the equator). We're talkin' major whiplash here if it stops suddenly. What the heck is escape velocity anyway ? I think it's less than 1000mph. So . . .

_

Immortal · Post by **Immortal** » Thu Feb 14, 2002 11:19 pm

also another factor that u gusy didn't talk about is that.. without change in climate and pull of the moon and the sun changing..

the water might stop moving and freeze up.. therefore we will all be dead even if there's heat...

just a thought

Incognito · Post by **Incognito** » Thu Feb 14, 2002 11:32 pm

i really dont think that we would go flying in one direction at 1000 mph beacuse everything around us is currently moving at 1000mph due to the earths rotation. so if it stopped , we wouldnt even know....hehe

brembo · Post by **brembo** » Thu Feb 14, 2002 11:41 pm

Originally posted by rhcowles
Gravity is directly proportional to the mass of the objects and inversely proportional to the distance between them. The earth is approximately 24000 miles around the equator. It completes one rotation in 24 hours. Therefore we are moving at approximately 1000mph (at the equator). We're talkin' major whiplash here if it stops suddenly. What the heck is escape velocity anyway ? I think it's less than 1000mph. So . . .

_

23,000 mph I think...nope just checked 25,000mph.

poptom · Post by **poptom** » Fri Feb 15, 2002 12:38 am

Naw, we'd be hugging the ground at 1000 mph. There would be no escape.
Loose objects would be sliding along with us and most fixed objects would become loose objects.
I kinda hope it doesn't happen.

Brent · Post by **Brent** » Fri Feb 15, 2002 12:48 am

what keeps the earth spinning?

what would it take to stop the earth from spinning?

brembo · Post by **brembo** » Fri Feb 15, 2002 12:53 am

Originally posted by Brent
what keeps the earth spinning?

Now that is a damn good question. I have no idea. Thanks Brent, you can just rock me to sleep now, thats gonna keep me up thinkin. You bastid. I'm gonna find out...I must.

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Fri Feb 15, 2002 12:55 am

The Earth spins constantly because of Newton's laws of motion. A body in motion will remain in motion forever unless a force acts upon it to alter or halt said motion.

This is why, I think Venus, actually has a reversed orbit when compared to other planets in our solar system. It is speculated that a large piece of space debris as large as the earth wacked into Venus on an angle against the direction of rotation.

Theoretically speaking, a large enough piece of space debris could hit us at any time at a similar angle and similarly alter our orbit.

How'd you like the sun to rise in the west and set in the east?

brembo · Post by **brembo** » Fri Feb 15, 2002 1:07 am

Originally posted by Macho-Module
The Earth spins constantly because of Newton's laws of motion. A body in motion will remain in motion forever unless a force acts upon it to alter or halt said motion.

Yes, but WHAT started that initial rotation? I'm beginning to think its the nature of gravity wells in general. The attraction(gravity) would pull objects towards one another in a straight line manner, possibly colliding, or just missing, and then start the process over, and over. In the presence of many objects, the many pulls added up would *I think* tend to be a circular motion. Seeing how the center of a circle is the same distance from its edges all the way around. The "bits" reached a state of appeasement for all the differing pulls and slowly coalesced, keeping a circular motion. Or I need to cut back on the crack.

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Fri Feb 15, 2002 1:17 am

I am assuming all motion as we know it was started by the big bang. The sun has a sort of "gravity" that has locked us and the other 8 planets into a constant elipsical orbit.

At first we were just a rock floating through space in a straight line, but one day we passed very near to the sun and the sun's gravitational field (like Black Hole's and other stars, suns DO have gravity) pulled us from our straight path into a circular orbit. Halley's comet is a good example. It is caught in the Sun's pull. (at least I think it is Halley's comet).

It is the same principal used to put satellites in orbit around the Earth. You launch the satellite at an angle into space just outside of the Earth's atmosphere, and the Earth's "pull" places that satellite into it's own orbit around Earth, thus giving the satellite free unlimited fuelless motion. The only time a satellite needs to use engine power is to move either up or down for reasons probably having to do with collision with something or to get a better signal.

The idea behind engines for the satellite are the same concept for a meteor or some other body hitting a planet on an angle. Both are forces that would forever alter our planet's motion. Except, WE dont have engine power to fix the change in trajectory.

EDIT: Wow. Astronomy class is really paying off. I knew I didnt pay $800 dollars for nothing.

*me feels fuzzy and warm*

poptom · Post by **poptom** » Fri Feb 15, 2002 1:24 am

The rotation of the earth is simply due to the fact that that's the way it is.

brembo · Post by **brembo** » Fri Feb 15, 2002 1:25 am

Actually, satellites are constantly falling, its thier rate of travel that keeps em from hitting the earth. Odd, but thats the way it works.

Gaming-Module · Post by **Gaming-Module** » Fri Feb 15, 2002 1:34 am

Originally posted by brembo
Actually, satellites are constantly falling, its thier rate of travel that keeps em from hitting the earth. Odd, but thats the way it works.

Crap. I want my $800 back.

rhcowles · Post by **rhcowles** » Fri Feb 15, 2002 6:53 am

OK . . . since escape velocity is greater than 1000mph we wouldn't go flying off into space. When the rotation stopped we would continue moving at 100mph in a straight line until acted upon by outside forces (friction and/or impact with stationary objects) slows us down or stops us. Ouch ! ! !