I was holding a rubber band ball in my hand earlier and tossing it up in the air at about eye level. I noticed that I could see the shape of individual rubber bands on the axis of rotation on the outside of the ball but the edges of the ball were blurry. This got me thinking.. is a ball spinning slower near the axis than it is at the outer edge? Is the earth spinning faster at the equator than it is at the poles? If speed is d/t then the math makes sense to a layman like me that the ball would be rotating slower at the center and faster on the edges. Please help.
edit: holy shit. balls are fascinating.
In: 439
take a look at a bike tire or any other wheel. mark a point on it close to the axle and another point on the tire. spin the tire. you will see that both points cross their original positions at the same time. now consider the circumference of the circle made by the point close to the axle. it is much less distance than the circle made by the point on the tire. therefore, the further the point is from the axis, the farther it has to travel for one full spin. if it does that in the same amount of time, it must be traveling faster.
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