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
Yes you are correct.
If you spin a ball, the points at the poles (axis of rotation) are not moving. This is what we call the north and south poles for the earth.
The equator is the part that moves the fastest.
This has some weird effects on Earth:
– professional high jumpers can jump a tiny bit higher when near the equator, since the centrifugal force from spinning around the earth is pushes them just a little bit more up.
– the same thing goes for the earth itself, which actually bulges out near the equator. Think of how a chef spinning a pizza dough makes it stretch out in a circle; the same thing happens to the equator (only very slightly).
– space misssions are best conducted from near the equator, and always launch toward the east. This helps by adding the speed of the spinning earth to the rocket, making it require less fuel to reach orbital speeds.
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