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if the world stoppe...
 

[Closed] if the world stopped spinning...

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[#2382030]

...would we loose gravity? What else would happen? No tides? No day into night into day? No weather?

Off work unwell and clearly my mind is needing some interaction.


 
Posted : 18/01/2011 10:10 pm
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The world would separate into two warring factions. Those who suffer with S.A.D. And those who don't.

EDIT: Actually that's horseshit, sorry.


 
Posted : 18/01/2011 10:12 pm
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Iirc the biggest issue might be that the earths core was no longer spinning either and thus not creating the protective magnetic field around the earth. We would all then instantly frazzle.

Irrefutable science excellence there based on holywood movies and 1st year uni physics. 😆

HTH!

keV


 
Posted : 18/01/2011 10:13 pm
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I go spinning 3 times a week at the moment. If I miss a day I get a bit crotchety, I can't see it being much different for the world.


 
Posted : 18/01/2011 10:14 pm
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One side of the earth would get very hot, one side would get very cold. Gravity and magnetism would be fine.


 
Posted : 18/01/2011 10:22 pm
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Weather would be changed, as stated tides/day night. How quick is it going to stop? If it was an emergency stop inertia would probably mean the vast majority of land animals (and possibly sea animals) would be killed as they were flung into solid objects.

Gravity has absolutely NOTHING to do with spin, it's caused by any solid object. Bigger the mass the greater it's gravity well.


 
Posted : 18/01/2011 10:22 pm
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We would all then instantly frazzle.

Not sure if the magnetic field would be affected, and if it were, the frazzlin' would not be quite instant: the solar wind would gradually strip away our atmosphere, á la Mars. Then we'd be in the poo poo.

the vast majority of land animals would be killed

Polar bears and penguins should be ok (same [i]rotational[/i] speed as everyone else, but much lower speed compared to all those equatorial jaguars and that).

Interesting idea, OP!


 
Posted : 18/01/2011 10:32 pm
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Water wont whirl down the plughole any more. Weather systems will be radically different. If it's sun synchronous then one side will always be dark and barren.


 
Posted : 18/01/2011 11:14 pm
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Interestingly enough, if the world stopped spinning, everyone would weigh slightly more (unless you were standing at one of the poles).

This has nothing to do with your mass, nor gravity.

But yes, one side would get hotter and one side very cold. The cold side would be freezing, uninhabitable. I'm not quite sure how hot the hot side would get though. I wouldn't think stuff bursting into flames hot, but maybe. I imagine there will be a few lucky places that are in the perfect position and just have a nice warm steady temperature for the rest of time (until the sun dies).

Water wont whirl down the plughole any more.

Can't see the thinking behind this.


 
Posted : 18/01/2011 11:22 pm
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i remember reading some in-depth reports about this before.

Apparently if the earth stopped spinning suddenly, we'd all be ripped apart by the sudden stop in inertia......or something......I was a bit tipsy while reading it and can't be bothered looking for it again


 
Posted : 18/01/2011 11:22 pm
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Ive a feeling travelling at around 700 mph to a dead stop is gonna definitely have some inertia issue somewhere, the earth certainly aint using cheap pads to achieve that stopping power!!!


 
Posted : 18/01/2011 11:31 pm
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Apparently if the earth stopped spinning suddenly, we'd all be ripped apart by the sudden stop in inertia......or something......I was a bit tipsy while reading it and can't be bothered looking for it again

I think if it stopped near instantly, everything would suddenly be hurtled east(?) at ~1000mph.


 
Posted : 18/01/2011 11:33 pm
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Well that means you need to travel to the other part of the world to sleep ...


 
Posted : 18/01/2011 11:34 pm
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At the equator yup, further north or south you go it reduces to a speed of nowt directly on the poles axis. I think. However I am just a builder and may need to stick to reading the sun!


 
Posted : 18/01/2011 11:36 pm
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Water wont whirl down the plughole any more

The whole water swirling and hemispheres / the coriolis effect is an urban myth. What makes water swirl is standing currents in the water caused by disturbances when you poured the water in from the taps and such. The coriolis effect is real, but the force is tiny in comparison. The only way it'd affect the way the water goes down a plughole is if you could make all the water in the sink stand still first, which is ... left as an exercise for the reader.


 
Posted : 18/01/2011 11:42 pm
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At the equator yup, further north or south you go it reduces to a speed of nowt directly on the poles axis.

Yeah.


 
Posted : 18/01/2011 11:46 pm
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Planes on conveyor belts would suddenly start taking off all over the world


 
Posted : 18/01/2011 11:47 pm
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The only way it'd affect the way the water goes down a plughole is if you could make all the water in the sink stand still first, which is ... left as an exercise for the reader.

The water in our sink and bath do it, they drain really slowly so water is practically at a standstill. So not really a myth then?


 
Posted : 18/01/2011 11:48 pm
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Actually if one face of the earth continually faces the sun - the earth will rotate exactly 1 a year. Much like the moon rotates once a month. If the earth isn't rotating at all then the of the sun will be gradually spread around the earth.

If the earth ce to a dead stop - then it's momentum would completely pull it apart.


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 12:30 am
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Well if you're prepared to wait, you'll find out. The world is slowing down gradually ......... as I discovered the other day whilst watching TV when Attenborough told me that during the period of Snowball Earth, the world spun much faster - a day was only 6 hours long.

If the earth isn't rotating at all then the sun will be gradually spread around the earth.

So one day will be one year long then ? ................it's gonna be a long wait 'til the weekend 😐


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 12:46 am
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one side of the earth would get hot ... blah blah blah etc.

water would stop draining anticlockwise in the northern hemisphere blah blah blah etc.

we'd still have tides, cos the moon moves around the earth every 28 days
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.
.
hang on, do you mean 'stops spinning' so that one side faces the sun forever, or 'stops spinning' so that one day lasts 1 year...?
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cos that will affect things...

but as pointed out above, angular velocity means that objects at the equator can be thought of as moving at around 1000 mphish, (decreasing to zero at the poles).

if the earth stopped spinning, there would be a few crashes here and there.


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 1:28 am
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Yep - 1 day will last a year!


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 1:33 am
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If the world should stop revolving spinning slowly down to die,
I'd spend the end with you.
And when the world was through,
Then one by one the stars would all go out,
Then you and I would simply fly away

. 😯
.
.
.
70s popsters - Bread


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 1:38 am
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If the world stopped spinning the mint sauce key fobs would arrive. Probably.


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 9:53 am
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Sits wondering... How he can fit the words angular velocity into everyday building life???......


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 10:07 am
 j_me
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BSkyB would go bust and hopefully Murdoch too (so it isn't all doom and gloom)


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 10:22 am
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would the satellites in orbit keep spinning? would the satnav still work?


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 10:35 am
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The water in our sink and bath do it, they drain really slowly so water is practically at a standstill. So not really a myth then?

He didn't say that water did not swirl down a plughole, he said it's cause was not due to the coriolis effect, i.e it is not due to the earth's rotation.

Given a completely still initial conditions in a perfect bath with a perfect plughole water could flow down the plug hole symmetrically, i.e. not swirling. This solution however is unstable and any deviation away from that causes a swirling down the plug hole. This is just like a valid solution for the atmosphere is solid body rotation, but it's very unstable. The turbulence in the water is a greater source of instability than the coriolis effect.


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 10:37 am
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philconsequence - Member
would the satellites in orbit keep spinning? would the satnav still work?

Yes satellite is just falling to earth with the same curvature as the body it orbits.


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 10:40 am
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Hang on then...

i remember watching a six million dollar man episode where a guy from a planet with really high gravity came to earth and was dead strong so kept beating everyone up and throwing cars around and stuff (he was a librarian on his planet), and that's where Steve Austin came in.

Anyway, if some bloke who lives on the equator, has an arm wrestle with some guy who lives at the north pole, would he lose because the guy at the north pole has no rotational forces to reduce the effects of gravity through his life and hence he'll be much stronger?


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 10:53 am
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Plus, the guy on the equator experiences lower gravity anyway because he's further away from the earth's centre.


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 10:57 am
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Would I spill my coffee?


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 10:58 am
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samurai, the gravity at the poles and equator is the same, its just the centripetal acceleration that means the person at the equator has a slightly smaller reaction force (eg: a person stands on a set of scales, the scales will read higher at the poles).

This effect is tiny though, and wouldn't really effect results. Don't go confusing some arm wrestling forum

ernie_lynch, the world spins slower in winter actually, due to more ice and snow forming at the tops of mountain. Then summer comes and all that mass turns to water, and rushes down closer to the earth's surface, and the world spins faster.

If you're sat on a spinny chair you can test this. Spin yourself holding your legs out, then bring your legs in as you're still spinning. You speed up.


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 11:06 am
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Realman - were you private or state school educated?


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 11:17 am
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State.


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 11:20 am
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There would be a lot more weeing on shoes. The coriolis effect causes the urine to spin as it passes through the urethra. The upshot of this is similar to rifling a bullet, and greatly increases accuracy of urination. So the closer you are to the equator the larger the volume of inaccurate pish that is spouted.


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 11:20 am
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Interesting - thanks.


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 11:24 am
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Realman,

You've actually got that completely backwards

Gravity is slightly stronger at the poles


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 11:30 am
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[i]samurai, the gravity at the poles and equator is the same, its just the centripetal acceleration that means the person at the equator has a slightly smaller reaction force (eg: a person stands on a set of scales, the scales will read higher at the poles).[/i]

Nope, it's not.

If someone lives all their life at the pole, then even if the effect is tony, everytime they pick something up, they have to work that little bit harder so by the time they reach 30, they'll be that much stronger.

Someone on the equator is further away from the apparent centre of mass of the earth (because the earth bluges on the equator due to those same rotational forces) and therefore experiences a smaller gravitational pull than they guy at the pole.

I reckon if the muscular eskimos all turned up at Singapore and started kicking off, the locals would have an awful time dealing with them and would need to import some Aussies or someone to deal with it all.

Or Lee Majors.


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 11:32 am
 Rio
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the gravity at the poles and equator is the same

You have to be very careful what you mean by gravity! The earth isn't a sphere, it's an oblate spheroid, so if you're on the equator you're further from the centre. If you're as old as me you will have learned in school the gravitational force is G*m1*m2/(r^^2) so the gravitational force at the equator is less. Younger people probably won't have learned this in their media studies and sports management GCSEs. 🙂


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 11:34 am
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richmtb, when I wrote

the gravity at the poles and equator is the same

I wanted to write "almost the same" but didn't want to confuse more.

The earth is slightly squished, right? So yes, gravity would be slightly stronger at the poles, but look at this

Distances from points on the surface to the center range from 6,353 km to 6,384 km

31km in it. That won't have any noticeable effect, especially over the difference in reaction force caused by the earth spin.


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 11:35 am
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oops, double post.

And yes, because of the formula being a reverse square law, the 31km is negligible.

Perhaps, samurai, if two identical twins did the exact same training, one at the equator, one at the pole, a difference would be noticeable, which would be pretty cool. You'd have to build some nice facilities to remove temperature and air pressure and humidity out of the equation though.


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 11:36 am
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The water in our sink and bath do it, they drain really slowly so water is practically at a standstill. So not really a myth then?

It might look still, but it's stll moving about. Unless you've left the water in your sink untouched for a few days, residual angular momentum in the water will be greater than the coriolis effect. Even then, pulling the plug will exert a force and potentially skew your results, as will any imperfections in the bowl.


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 11:46 am
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Unless you've left the water in your sink untouched for a few days

What about air movement above the sink, thermal movement within the water itself, and the effects of the plughole not being in the centre of the sink.......wouldn't they have any effect ?

Or is the chaos theory/butterfly effect bollox ?


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 12:07 pm
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would TJ start posting pictures of boobs?


 
Posted : 19/01/2011 12:22 pm
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