If you run 10mph inside of a train that is moving 100mph, are you moving 110mph or 100mph?

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If you run 10mph inside of a train that is moving 100mph, are you moving 110mph or 100mph?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

This is a perfect opportunity to explain relativity and relative motion!

Because it all depends on your point of observation.

To a person on the train with you, you’re moving 10 mph.

To a person standing beside the tracks, you’re moving at 110 mph.

To a fixed point in the solar system, you’re moving 110 mph PLUS the 60,000 miles per hour (or something like that) that the earth is traveling around the sun, plus the tangential rotational speed (which varies depending on lattitude).

From a fixed point in the universe you’re moving 250,000 miles per second or something like that, as the milky way galaxy hauls ass through space…

Numbers are wrong, for sure, but you get the point, which is *all motion is relative*. Without a reference point, you can’t even establish that motion is even occurring, and all motion depends on the relative motion of you from that reference point.

So the answer is yes, depending on perspective, both conclusions are perfectly correct.

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