Is The Earth Spinning or Stationary?

marplots said:
This only gives me a head height of 20 cm. Am I a gerbil?

ETA: If I am, that's fine, I just wanted to know for the rest of the thought experiment.
Click to expand...

Oops, nice catch. Should be 6378.102. Too many digits. Answer should be 465.100145843 rather than 465.100014584. So a tenth of a millimeter difference.
 
thewholesoul said:
Has your claim ever been actually measured with a physical instrument? Or was the 1000mph velocity calculated?
Click to expand...

It was measured. In numerous ways.

Does air actually move at the identical velocity of a spinning solid? I don't believe that is physically possible on an open system. I would expect that the spinning solid has a greater velocity that the surrounding air. I would expect that the air nearer to the surface of the spinning solid to move faster than the air on the outer rim of the atmosphere.
Click to expand...

Why would you expect that? The only friction the air meets is against the surface of the Earth. What can prevent it from spinning at the same speed?

Has this uniform constant eastwardly motion you claim exists, has it been actually measured with physical instruments?
Click to expand...

It has been measured.

Also, you assume that air will travel WITH the spinning solid. However when I move my hand through the air, when I walk, when I drive a car or ride a bicycle the air does not travel WITH me, I travel through it. In a closed system I can Iagine the air traveling with the spinning solid, but the earth is enclosed by a vacuum, this hardly constitutes a barrier.
Click to expand...

Does the vacuum provide friction against the upper atmosphere?

When you move through the air, the surrounding air provides friction against the air in contact with you so it can only partly follow you. The atmosphere meets no resistance from the surrounding vacuum, so it largely follows the surface of the Earth. (I say largely, because there is such a thing as weather systems.)

I don't understand. Assuming you are right and there physically exists a constant eastwards rotation of the atmosphere then why do we not feel it when we travel westwards? We should.
Click to expand...

Why should we?

But they do gain acceleration from earths rotation. The only rational reason they physically gain greater velocity is if they are subject to a physical force. Flying westward, walking westward, we are moving against this force, this force we don't feel but rockets do? Something doesn't smell right.
Click to expand...

If you were trying to leave the Earth you would.

To give an analogy. Imagine we are all on boats in a donut shaped swimming pool. In the centre there is a rotating cylinder which causes the waters around the cylinder to rotate at 10mph in the same direction. Boats travelling with the rotation will move faster and further, (like what NASA claims to do to achieve escape velocity) but boats moving against the constant unidirectional force WILL necessarily and without exception move slower. There must be friction. Can you point out the flaw in my analogy?
Click to expand...

No, there is no flaw. If you walk at 3mph east, you are really walking at 1003*) mph, but you don't notice, because the landscape and air moves with you. If you walk west you are really going backwards at 9997 mph, but again you don't notice because the surroundings move with you. Same with the people in the boats in your analogy: As long as they only look at the water and other boats, they won't notice the movement, but if they try to jump off to the shore, they will notice.

I didn't quite follow this part. either way you are assuming that the earth is rotating. Why not copy past some evidence or proofs of earths rotation and post them.
Click to expand...

Mmm, might as well point out general rules of debate for you: Do your own homework. We are not required to keep proving axioms. There is a ton of the evidence you want out there. Find it, study it. If you want to challenge it, THEN present your challenge. OK?

Hans

*) Assuming you are on a latitude where the speed of Earth's surface is exactly 1000 mph.
 
Last edited:
thewholesoul said:
Has your claim ever been actually measured with a physical instrument? Or was the 1000mph velocity calculated?
Click to expand...
The difference between the movement of the atmosphere and the surface of the earth is constantly measured at innumerable points all over the planet. The speed of rotation of the planet is calculated from measurement.
Does air actually move at the identical velocity of a spinning solid? I don't believe that is physically possible on an open system...
Click to expand...
Then you are wrong. Your beliefs and expectations have let you down.
Has this uniform constant eastwardly motion you claim exists, has it been actually measured with physical instruments?
Click to expand...
Yes, it's been measured and demonstrated in numerous ways.
Also, you assume that air will travel WITH the spinning solid. However when I move my hand through the air, when I walk, when I drive a car or ride a bicycle the air does not travel WITH me, I travel through it. In a closed system I can Iagine the air traveling with the spinning solid, but the earth is enclosed by a vacuum, this hardly constitutes a barrier.

I don't understand. Assuming you are right and there physically exists a constant eastwards rotation of the atmosphere then why do we not feel it when we travel westwards? We should.
Click to expand...
We do feel wind resistance, whichever direction we move in. A small object, your hand, moving through the air, does not instantly entrain the entire atmosphere to move along with it. This is as anyone ought to expect. The atmosphere, after several billion years in contact with the surface of the planet, is moving at the same rate as that surface. This again is as any reasonable person should expect. Even if you choose to reject the idea that the earth really is a rotating globe, these simple concepts should not tax the intelligence of even a small child.
But they do gain acceleration from earths rotation.
Click to expand...
No, they gain velocity.
The only rational reason they physically gain greater velocity is if they are subject to a physical force.
Click to expand...
That's what the rocket motor provides. If rockets were to be blown into orbit by the wind, they would have sails.
Flying westward, walking westward, we are moving against this force, this force we don't feel but rockets do? Something doesn't smell right.
Click to expand...
I agree about the smell. It is very hard to believe these simple ideas genuinely bamboozle you. What 'force' do you imagine opposes your walking westward?

To give an analogy. Imagine we are all on boats in a donut shaped swimming pool. In the centre there is a rotating cylinder which causes the waters around the cylinder to rotate at 10mph in the same direction. Boats travelling with the rotation will move faster and further, (like what NASA claims to do to achieve escape velocity) but boats moving against the constant unidirectional force WILL necessarily and without exception move slower. There must be friction. Can you point out the flaw in my analogy?
Click to expand...
Yes I can. You appear to be considering the speed of the boats relative to someone standing at the side of the pool, instead of someone standing on the rotating cylinder in the middle.

you are assuming that the earth is rotating. Why not copy past some evidence or proofs of earths rotation and post them.
Click to expand...
Foucault's pendulum directly demonstrates the rotation of the earth. The corrections required for long range gunnery quantitatively demonstrate the rotation of the earth.
 
frenat said:
you don't feel constant motion
Click to expand...

myriad said:
Nah, we feel it all the time, but our brains have evolved to ignore it.
Click to expand...

Although I don't personally agree with myriads position, there is clearly a divergence of opinion in here.

In any case, if we don't feel constant motion then how come NASA rockets do feel it and use it to gain a speed boost? Are you saying NASA are lying?

Besides, the atmosphere is made of air, air is a form of matter and matter in motion is force. How come when we travel westwards, or flights fly westwards, we don't feel this constant unidirectional whole atmospheric force?

All the best
 
Mojo said:
If that's the case, then the furthest things we can currently observe are circling around us at about 1.8 billion light years per hour.
Click to expand...


That's a very good point Mojo.....

If the earth is stationary as is claimed:

How fast (given their respective distances from earth) would such bodies as the Moon, Mars, Venus etc have to be moving to appear to travel across the sky every evening.

Or are they all a bunch of fairy lights? If so, what wattage are they and whose job is it to change the bulbs? It must be a rather expensive enterprise given that I just paid £9.95 on Amazon Prime for 10 x 60w Bayonet Caps...

Besides, we can all observe (with the right equipment) the Great Red Spot appearing to rotate around Jupiter. What explains this?

Begs the question, is Jupiter spinning but not Earth?

Compus
 
thewholesoul said:
To give an analogy. Imagine we are all on boats in a donut shaped swimming pool. In the centre there is a rotating cylinder which causes the waters around the cylinder to rotate at 10mph in the same direction. Boats travelling with the rotation will move faster and further, (like what NASA claims to do to achieve escape velocity) but boats moving against the constant unidirectional force WILL necessarily and without exception move slower. There must be friction. Can you point out the flaw in my analogy?
Click to expand...

The flaw is that it's a useless analogy. A donut shaped swimming pool will have a perimeter and a bottom, and water will move progressively slower closer to those edges due to well understood viscous drag effects (though, of course, if you don't accept the well-known effects of rotation of the Earth there's no reason you should accept that viscosity exists, I suppose). But suppose the water (representing the atmosphere) is rotating at the same angular velocity (an important distinction here) as the central cylinder; then, where's the problem? Boats left to move freely will move in circles, their position fixed relative to a point on the central cylinder; a force against the motion will cause them to move at a lesser angular velocity, and one with the motion at a greater. In other words, exactly the situation used not only by NASA, but by any other nation that has launched satellites.

Dave
 
Nay_Sayer said:
Stationary, In the exact center of the universe as a flat disc sitting upon a great turtle.

Please do not ask about what is under the turtle, It gets messy at that point.
Click to expand...

That doesn't make sense - the disc would wobble as it couldn't be balanced perfectly on the dome of the shell. That is why the disc itself is balanced on the back of 4 elephants who are standing on the turtle.
 
thewholesoul said:
Besides, the atmosphere is made of air, air is a form of matter and matter in motion is force. How come when we travel westwards, or flights fly westwards, we don't feel this constant unidirectional whole atmospheric force?
Click to expand...


For the same reason that if you are in a Volkswagen going at 60mph you don't continually feel the windscreen slamming into your face.
 
Last edited:
Nay_Sayer said:
Stationary, In the exact center of the universe as a flat disc sitting upon a great turtle.

Please do not ask about what is under the turtle, It gets messy at that point.
Click to expand...

Darat said:
That doesn't make sense - the disc would wobble as it couldn't be balanced perfectly on the dome of the shell. That is why the disc itself is balanced on the back of 4 elephants who are standing on the turtle.
Click to expand...


But from there it is turtles all the way down.
 
Nay_Sayer said:
Stationary, In the exact center of the universe as a flat disc sitting upon a great turtle.

Please do not ask about what is under the turtle, It gets messy at that point.
Click to expand...
You missed out the 4 elephants. Previously 5 but there was some tragedy in the distant past. Oh hang on, I've ended up on Round World somehow, can anyone give me a lift back to Dicsworld where things work according to common sense and narrativium and not this silly thing called "science"?
 
thewholesoul said:
Warm regards foster, how's it going? I was wondering when this,argument was going to be raised.

The reason we don't feel the velocity of the aeroplane is because we are located INSIDE the moving solid body. Like when you run your organs are the passengers and they don't feel the friction against the air that you are pushing through

We are located on the OUTSIDE on the EXTERIOR of the solid moving body.

Now if you were sitting on the OUTSIDE of a plane travelling at that speed, could you still eat those peanuts? I don't think so.
Click to expand...

this would only be significant if the Earth was moving through an external medium that caused friction. It is not. The atmosphere is moving with us. You still can feel constant motion.
 
thewholesoul said:
Although I don't personally agree with myriads position, there is clearly a divergence of opinion in here.

In any case, if we don't feel constant motion then how come NASA rockets do feel it and use it to gain a speed boost? Are you saying NASA are lying?

Besides, the atmosphere is made of air, air is a form of matter and matter in motion is force. How come when we travel westwards, or flights fly westwards, we don't feel this constant unidirectional whole atmospheric force?

All the best
Click to expand...

You are confusing concepts. Constant motion is not felt. The air is moving with the Earth. Rockets get a boost because of the increased velocity. They would get the SAME boost whether there was air or not.
 
thewholesoul said:
Although I don't personally agree with myriads position, there is clearly a divergence of opinion in here.
Click to expand...
The only divergence being between those who decide to answer your nonsense as if you were sincerely confused and those who decide to take the piss and meet nonsense with nonsense.

In any case, if we don't feel constant motion then how come NASA rockets do feel it and use it to gain a speed boost? Are you saying NASA are lying?
Click to expand...
You appear to be confused about what rockets feel. The equator and everything on it is travelling east at roughly 1,000 mph. A rocket which takes off and heads east benefits from that in the same way that you, jumping forward off a spinning carousel, will be travelling faster than if you jump off in the other direction. But this is so trivial that your continued purported bamboozlement defies credulity.

Besides, the atmosphere is made of air, air is a form of matter and matter in motion is force. How come when we travel westwards, or flights fly westwards, we don't feel this constant unidirectional whole atmospheric force?
Click to expand...
You appear to be confusing two different frames of reference; motion relative to the surface of the earth and motion relative to an observer who is not rotating with the earth.

If you take a westbound plane from an airport at the equator, then the plane flies due west at, say, 600mph relative to the ground beneath it. But the ground, and the atmosphere, continue to rotate east at 1,000 mph from the point of view of an imaginary observer who is not rotating with the earth. From their frame of reference, your plane is still moving east at 400mph. From your point of view inside the plane, the sun, a handy substitute for our imagined observer, would continue to appear to move west through the sky, just more slowly than you experience when you are standing on the ground.
 
Last edited:
Jack by the hedge said:
You appear to be confusing two different frames of reference; motion relative to the surface of the earth and motion relative to an observer who is not rotating with the earth.

If you take a westbound plane from an airport at the equator, then the plane flies due west at, say, 600mph relative to the ground beneath it. But the ground, and the atmosphere, continue to rotate east at 1,000 mph from the point of view of an imaginary observer who is not rotating with the earth. From their frame of reference, your plane is still moving east at 400mph. From your point of view inside the plane, the sun, a handy substitute for our imagined observer, would continue to appear to move west through the sky, just more slowly than you experience when you are standing on the ground.
Click to expand...


http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=174090
 
Funny that he stated he would address Foucault Pendulums and yet he didn't.
 
I sense the 'understanding relativity' wall approaching at breakneck speed.
 
"I don't go hurtling into the nearest wall to my west at 1000 miles an hour as soon as my feet leave the ground, so I don't believe the Earth spins"
"The air is spinning along with the Earth, and so are you. So relative to the Earth's surface we're standing still even though the entire system rotates."
"wutwutwut?"
"People inside a train also don't have to run along with the train in order to travel along the tracks"
"wutwut lol, prove gravity in a lab, lol. It's all a conspiracy."

Maybe this thread needs one of those signs like the one above the entrance of hell in Dante's Inferno...
 
Jack by the hedge said:
The difference between the movement of the atmosphere and the surface of the earth is constantly measured at innumerable points all over the planet. The speed of rotation of the planet is calculated from measurement.

Then you are wrong. Your beliefs and expectations have let you down.

Yes, it's been measured and demonstrated in numerous ways.

We do feel wind resistance, whichever direction we move in. A small object, your hand, moving through the air, does not instantly entrain the entire atmosphere to move along with it. This is as anyone ought to expect. The atmosphere, after several billion years in contact with the surface of the planet, is moving at the same rate as that surface. This again is as any reasonable person should expect. Even if you choose to reject the idea that the earth really is a rotating globe, these simple concepts should not tax the intelligence of even a small child.

No, they gain velocity.

That's what the rocket motor provides. If rockets were to be blown into orbit by the wind, they would have sails.
I agree about the smell. It is very hard to believe these simple ideas genuinely bamboozle you. What 'force' do you imagine opposes your walking westward?


Yes I can. You appear to be considering the speed of the boats relative to someone standing at the side of the pool, instead of someone standing on the rotating cylinder in the middle.


Foucault's pendulum directly demonstrates the rotation of the earth. The corrections required for long range gunnery quantitatively demonstrate the rotation of the earth.
Click to expand...
That last one (Foucault) ninjaed me - Just as I was set to mention it!! The classic!!
 
CompusMentus said:
That's a very good point Mojo.....

If the earth is stationary as is claimed:

How fast (given their respective distances from earth) would such bodies as the Moon, Mars, Venus etc have to be moving to appear to travel across the sky every evening.

Or are they all a bunch of fairy lights? If so, what wattage are they and whose job is it to change the bulbs? It must be a rather expensive enterprise given that I just paid £9.95 on Amazon Prime for 10 x 60w Bayonet Caps...

Besides, we can all observe (with the right equipment) the Great Red Spot appearing to rotate around Jupiter. What explains this?

Begs the question, is Jupiter spinning but not Earth?

Compus
Click to expand...

Obviously the Red Spot is a giant amoeba!!!!!
 
I'm still waiting for the non-globe model that aligns better with the observable evidence.
 
Why don't I feel the motion of the air in an airplane?

When the airplane is moving at hundreds of miles/hour, the air inside the airplane must also be moving at that speed. So why don't I feel it's motion?

My theory is that airplanes are fake. Really they just get you to sit there for a long time while the reconstruct the city outside to look like the one you thought you were travelling to. Makes way more sense than not being able to feel air moving at hundreds of miles/hour.
 
dasmiller said:
I'm waiting for a non-spinning earth model that explains how geosynchronous spacecraft appear to be motionless in the sky without simply falling down.
Click to expand...


They stay there because they are artistically right, like the cup in the statue of Arthur Dent.
 
I don't know if anyone has ever noticed, but birds can only fly directly westwards. Not because the air currents are too strong to fly in any other direction, because the atmosphere is actually stationary. But the Earth just turns away from them at supersonic speed (at least between certain latitudes, but I don't know which ones because I'm allergic to cosines).
 
Last edited:
Porpoise of Life said:
I don't know if anyone has ever noticed, but birds can only fly directly westwards. Not because the air currents are too strong to fly in any other direction, because the atmosphere is actually stationary. But the Earth just turns away from them at supersonic speed (at least between certain latitudes, but I don't know which ones because I'm allergic to cosines).
Click to expand...

I have noticed that. Most days in the early evening there is a flock of crows that flies west above our house. Seems that it takes them 24 hours to circumnavigate the non-spinning globe.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom