Since the Earth is spinning, the objects in its surface are always changing direction, and thereby, changing velocity. So is this not an example of a non-inertial frame of reference?

Question

Since the Earth is spinning, the objects in its surface are always changing direction, and thereby, changing velocity. So is this not an example of a non-inertial frame of reference?

In: Physics

Answer 1

Yup. If you take the entire Earth into account, you won’t have a true “inertial reference frame” because there is slight differences from if it were not rotating.

However. These differences are very small, so anything not related to the Coriolis Effect or some other way involving the entire planet is fine to consider the surface to be inertial.