Hussain Miyaziwala
Physics Period 2
Bennett
December 6, 2014
What Would Happen if the World Stopped Spinning? Planet Earth, our home, spins at 1100 miles per hour around its equator. We don’t feel this speed because all our life the earth has had a constant velocity, and as a result we have not had any acceleration to be pushed back by. With the stopping of earth’s rotation, we as humans would experience a variety of pneumonia, all of which would ensue in the extinction of the human race.
The first thing that you notice when the earth stopped spinning would be you gaining a little weight. This is due to the fact that rotation of the earth creates a powerful centrifugal force that actually combats the earth gravity. But unfortunately, that would surely be the least of your concerns.
Everything would become a ballistic projectile
With the continuation of the atmosphere’s rotation, the earth would be violently stripped clean of anything not attached to core bedrock. Rocks, buildings, trees, soil, and even your pet dog would be swept almost comically into the atmosphere. The fastest hurricane ever recorded, Hurricane Camille, traveled merely at around 190 mph. Hurricane Katrina, traveling at 174 mph, killed thousands of people across the United States. The result of global rotational discontinuation would result in 1000+ mph winds literally shredding the surface of the earth, killing all humans within a matter of seconds, as well as a vast majority of living species. Michael Stevens, of Vsauce, says that we would instantly turn into a sort of supersonic tumbleweed causing the earth to be covered with stringy remnants of body parts.
If the Earth suddenly stopped spinning, everything on the surface of the Earth at the equator would suddenly be moving at more than 1000 sideways. The escape velocity of Earth is about 25,000 mph, so that isn’t enough to fly off into space; but it would cause some horrible damage as everything flew in a ballistic trajectory sideways.
The best way to escape this catastrophic rollercoaster would be standing on top of the poles. Because earth’s rotational velocity decreases as you get farther from the equator,