There’re many things we don’t really know. It’s an illusion that we know anything at all. If a group of aliens were to stop me and ask, “Say, bud, how many miles an hour does the earth spin at the equator?” I’d be in a fix. Hell, I don’t even know why Wednesday follows Tuesday. I’d be an intergalactic joke.
From: A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
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are you reading this book? i just read it a few months ago. it’s very good!
Rotation velocity: 1674.38 km/h = 465.11 m/s [at the equator”> from: Wikipedia
what if the earth stopped spinning suddenly? would we all fly off the surface, on account of inertia?
sorry laura, but i got numbers different than yours: The rotational speed of the Earth at the equator is about 1,038 miles per hour. At mid-latitudes, the speed of the Earth’s rotation decreases to 700 to 900 miles per hour. If the Earth were to stop spinning suddenly, the atmosphere would still be zipping along nicely at around 1,000 miles an hour. As a result, everything not attached to bedrock would pretty much be scoured clean. this came from: http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20020411.html
1674.38 kilometers per hour = 1040 miles per hour. so my original number is the same as yours – i went metric, is all.
oh! excellent!
is the earth posably near mock 1? speed of sound
spining near mock 1 sorry
The speed of sound is 761mph. At the equator the earth spins at 1,038mph. So yes, the earth spins faster than the speed of sound. That’s rather odd, isn’t it?