Why can’t we feel the earth rotating ?
In: Physics
The same reason you can’t feel the speed in a car when you’re holding steady at 60 mph – speed doesn’t create any force that we can feel – acceleration does.
Think of what happens when you get into a car and floor the gas. You’re pushed back into your seat, right? That’s caused by the forces of the rapid acceleration. Hit the brakes hard, and you’ll have the opposite reaction, you’re pushed forward into your seatbelt as speed changes. But if you’re cruising on the highway, at a more-or-less constant speed, you’re not pushed in any direction, you’re sitting normally. You and the car you’re sitting in are both moving at the same speed, without much change. No acceleration, no force.
Same deal with the Earth – it’s rotating constantly, and we’re rotating along with it. Since there’s no change in that speed, we don’t experience any force; we are simply in a constant state of movement through space. If someone could magically “slam the brakes” on the Earth’s rotation, that would cause us to all fly off. But so long as there’s no rapid acceleration or deceleration, there’s no force.
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