Spinning Earth

[Philip Copeman]

This is the one I have to keep pinching myself to keep in my mind because it is so foreign to our life experience.

Because of gravity and the observation  that  everything we see falls
towards the centre of the earth, it is easy to think in pre-Copernican
thinking that the earth is stationary at the Centre of the universe. In
this thinking, the Sun apparently revolves around the earth, once per
day. Because of the distances involved, at a casual glance it seems to
be near stationary.

In reality, the Earth is spinning rapidly and we are on in. Now at the
equator, obviously a little bit less at 30 degrees south, where Cape
Town is, the circumference of the Earth is 40,076 Kms.
The Earth spins towards the East, which is why the sun rises in the
East and sets in the West. Now once per day we spin in an Easterly
direction and in 24 hours we cover 40 076 Kms or approximately 1800 Kms
per hour, twice as fast as a Boing.  This circular momentum should
fling us off into space. It is only gravity that holds us in place.

Now see if you can imagine this reality. Face Eastwards (I guess this
is where the Muslims get if from)  Imagine that you are on some kind of
Hyper Congo Queen rushing forward at 1800 Km per hour - don't bump your
head. In the time that it has taken you to read this test, you have move eastwards approximately 50Kms.. I guess this is why the Catholics hounded Copernicus into
obscurity in his lifetime, it was just too much for them to comprehend.