... the world stoppped spinning on it's axis, and started spinning the other way?
... or it started to orbit the sun in the reverse direction?
If it stopped suddenly then us, the seas and anything else not nailed-down would be participating in the greatest (and final) supersurf ever! Even if it slowed gradually there would be some tidal effect I would imagine. Dunno what would happen if it went the other way round the sun tho.
BTW are you really bored or are you generally this strange?:) And, more importantly, what does that make me for bloody replying!!
Regards Jim.
...was there a future shock where a spaceship lands on a planet inhabited by a species of evil, viscious killing machine monsters and a community of peaceful, cute, fluffy aliens. The spacemen take pityonthe cute creatures and recue them from the monsters, taking them all aboard their ship only for the fluffy aliens to turn out to be the larval form of the nasty monsters?
Time would be reversed.
Labour would blame it on the policies of past governments.
i read somewhere the earth is actually slowing down, but at such a rate that it'll take something like 46 million years to stop.
... the world stoppped spinning on it's axis, and started spinning the other way?
The planet would probably tear itself to pieces before it started spinning in the opposite direction.
Why, do you have some sort of Evil Plan...?
if it stopped suddenly, we`d all be killed by momentum, nausea, falling buildings etc
if it just WAS spinning the other way, I don`t think there`d be any difference
Floyd (who can`t do italics)
Floyd, I just read your reply, and got this instant WB cartoon image in my head, of the world suddenly stopping, and all the buildings falling down. Made me laugh out loud.
Anyway, the reason I'm asking is because I had an idea for a story. Really. I'm not planning on taking over the world James Bond Villain-styl?e. Honest.
Mwha ha HA!
There's a rather wonderful H G Wells story called 'The Man Who Could Work Miracles' which is one of the best in the whole earth-stops-spinning-suddenly-and-momentum-causes-appalling-consequences genre.
Genius story. And the film isn't bad either, some fine performances and (for the time) effects
Lois Lane would be saved from crack.
Lois Lane would be saved from crack.
Lois Lane's a smackhead? Well with her lifestyle I guess it was only a matter of time ;)
What if the Earth's roation on it's axis stayed the same but it was orbiting the sun the opposite direction? Would we notice any difference?
If the Earth stopped turning, gravity would become much weaker and we'd certainly lose our atmosphere and gosh knows what else (that's a really boring answer, I know).
Really? I thought gravity was caused by the fact that the Earth's really big/dense and therefore attracts smaller/less dense objects towards it.
Steve
I don't know. I thought the spinning contributed to the gravity by centrigugal force, but I could be wrong.
You're right, Pyroxian. Thanks for that. Some guy called Cecil Adams writes:
"If the earth stopped spinning we would not fall off of it. Despite what a lot of people apparently think, spinning has nothing to do with gravity, which is a function of the earth's mass.
On the contrary, spinning tends to throw you off the earth. Were the earth to stop spinning, we would be stuck here more firmly than ever. That's because, due to the lack of centrifugal force, you would weigh more."
If only they'd made physics more interesting at school !