If the Earth were to quit revolving...

[Tex]

There are two ways you could look at it: The Earth could gradually slow over time until it did not revolve anymore (the most likely theory, and a proven one!), or the Earth would put on the emergency brake and stop instantaneously.

If we were to visualize the sudden-stop theory, what do you think would most likely occur? I picture every single object would be violently thrown sideways due to their own inertia. Mountains would crumble, and billions of people (not to mention animals) would die without any inkling of impending destruction...

What do you think?

[DaveofDefeat]

If you were on the poles you would be fine.

[qeveren]

The oceans? Comedy gold.

[Scotius]

If you were on the poles you would be fine.

No, he wouldn't. Remember that atmosphere would move too. That would be a Very Bad Thing. Also, Earth will not stop revolving. Even when it will become tidally locked to the Sun, you'll see celestial sphere doing revolutions around its axis. It will just take a year instead of 24 hours.

[vexx32]

The question is... in relation to what exactly are we measuring its revolution?

[dharak1]

The sun I suppose. If the sun was never seen and the earth suddenly tidally locked to it there would be a big change in rotation speed. Or if it tidally locked to the moon like Duna and Ike.

[jwenting]

ah, but what he described suggests the earth suddenly no longer spins around its axis, not that it no longer revolves around the sun...

Both are equally silly scenarios, neither is possible within the laws of physics as currently understood (the pulse energy that'd need to be imparted on the darn thing would be high enough to blow it to smithereens, high enough it's rather impossible to generate it let alone contain it to do the deed).

[Traches]

This question is dumb.

[NASAFanboy]

Considering that we are ON the Earth, and Earth HaAS a atmosphere, it would be foolhardy to thinks everyone gets thrown off....

If the Earth stopped revolving, so would we. Can't be sure about the aero planes (Which would either be tossed around or do nothing), but the ISS would survive. And that's what's important.

[ZetaX]

The question is not "dumb", but it should probably be refined to what exactly is stopped.

[magnemoe]

Earth rotation speed supersonic, during an ellipse they kept it in focus by chasing it by an Concorde, stopping it at once would not put you in orbit but it would kill you then you hit something solid. So it would depend on that contuned to move and that being stopped.

[Xeldrak]

Well, lets see:

Earths circumfrence: 40075.04 km

(400750.04 km)/(24 h)= 1669.793 km/s = 463.83 m/s

Well, if you are at the equator on Earth would stop spontaneously - there would not be much left of you, as the wall next to you will hit you with supersonic speed.

Allright, allright - so your not living on the equator. Lets say you are living in New York.

Latitude New York is about 40° N, 40°=(2*Pi/9)

(earth circumfrence*Cos((2*Pi)/9))/(24 h) = 1270 km/s = 355 m/s (rounded)

You chances to survive a still rather...slim, no "slight shift".

Edited November 25, 2013 by Xeldrak

[WestAir]

If the planet stopped suddenly, everything will still continue to move at its current velocity. Skyscrapers, the crust, the oceans, the wall next to you. No, you *wont* be smacked by the wall next to you. Instead, you and the wall - and the street and your city, and your continental shelf for that matter will continue on at 463.83Km/h or slower into the horizon. There won't be any super-sonic booms because the atmosphere will roll with you like the fluid it is.

What devastation will happen? The friction between the still mantle and super-sonic crust will cause a lot of things to glow, I'd imagine.

Edited November 26, 2013 by WestAir

[K^2]

(400750.04 km)/(24 h)= 1669.793 km/s = 463.83 m/s

(earth circumfrence*Cos((2*Pi)/9))/(24 h) = 1270 km/s = 355 m/s (rounded)

I'm guessing you copy-pasted that typo? Should read km/h rather than km/s. Oh, and you have an extra zero in that first line. Answers look good, though.

[Sternface]

At the equator, the Earth's surface rotates at 1,670 km/h. The force of gravity is 9.8m/s/s. I haven't done the maths, but your moment acceleration caused by the Earth decelerating is at least 2 times greater than gravity. Meaning that you will continue to move despite 1G pulling you down. Not to mention the fact that that 1 g of acceleration is downward, and would have little to no effect on your horizontal vector.

At a certain latitude, surface rotation will be less than 9.8m/s. Ignoring tectonic and atmospheric mayhem, gravity will be enough to hold you down at these latitudes. Standing on top of the true north poll is probably safe. At worst, you may lose your balance, provided the ground beneath you is able to withstand the enormous stress.

Now if you were standing at the equator, and assuming the ground below you stays intact and ceases rotation with the Earth, you probably wouldn't just 'shoot' off at 1,670 km/h, or immediately die of deceleration. I don't think your feet will have the traction to transfer the full force of deceleration. And even if it did, you would be well under escape velocity. You would probably slip, with both legs broken, and then fall onto ground moving 1,670 km/h. Think of taking a spill on a motorcycle while going 1,670 km/h. You will be instantly ground into a puff of particles upon landing from your 'slip.'

Now when you factor in air resistance, something else would happen. The air will continue to be moving relative to you. However, upon landing onto the 1,670km/h ground after you lost your balance, the force of the ground decelerating you via friction will be met by the force of air trying to keep you with it's flow - 1,670 km relative to ground. So while you being shredded by the earth, you will be superheated and compressed by the atmosphere.

It may look similar to replacing a bullet with a cherry and then firing the shell.

Edited November 26, 2013 by Sternface

[rasheed]

Welp, the ocean will move to the north pole leading to interesting things......

[Tex]

This question is dumb.

Please explain. I welcome criticism as long as it is backed up.

[Dunbaratu]

NOTHING can instantaneously stop, period. It requires an acceleration of infinity to do so. All scenarios in which you claim the earth stops must include how many seconds you're picturing it taking to do so. The answer cannot be zero seconds (to stop "instantaneously")

Even an object moving at only 0.000001 meters per second STILL requires infinite acceleration to stop in an instant.

Without that context of how many seconds you're talking about it taking for the Earth to stop, you're talking about a scenario that breaks all calculations using Newtonian physics anyway.

You'd be introducing everything on the planet to a Space Kraken bug.

But if we temporarily accept the absurd scenario, people need to remember that when you say "the earth" stops rotating you need to define what bits of mass are part of "the earth" and are thus included in that magical stopping. The talk about oceans sloshing, and tectonic plates shifting are rather predicated on treating these things like they're not part of the earth and are therefore not included in the statement "the earth stops rotating". Speaking of the earthquakes and magma effects from the shifting plates is basically a case of pretending the word "earth" is defined to only include the core and the mantle and not the crust.

[Chrisd857]

Quit revolving? Fall into the sun in all likelihood.

Quit rotating? Ahh, there is the real question.

This very question was asked on TV: Wikipedia (I saw the episode) (Ignoring any question of how, or the slowdown causing any inertial or earthquake-style problems)

One big problem would be that the atmosphere and oceans would tend to shift toward the poles. So, people would have to move toward the poles to breathe (say within 45 degrees of the poles). However, the polar regions would get flooded maybe about this far south (I'm guessing at my memory with the exact numbers). However, the shifting ocean would leave now-exposed areas of seafloor near the equator, which since they are now at lower effective altitude have breathable air. However, you have to dodge that sun.

One caveat: the show had the earth stop rotating, not become tidally locked, so the sun slowly dragged across the surface instead of focusing on one spot.

Edited November 26, 2013 by Chrisd857
gahhh

[MGUARN]

Quit revolving? Fall into the sun in all likelihood.

Quit rotating? Ahh, there is the real question.

This very question was asked on TV: Wikipedia (I saw the episode) (Ignoring any question of how, or the slowdown causing any inertial or earthquake-style problems)

One big problem would be that the atmosphere and oceans would tend to shift toward the poles. So, people would have to move toward the poles to breathe (say within 45 degrees of the poles). However, the polar regions would get flooded maybe about this far south (I'm guessing at my memory with the exact numbers). However, the shifting ocean would leave now-exposed areas of seafloor near the equator, which since they are now at lower effective altitude have breathable air. However, you have to dodge that sun.

One caveat: the show had the earth stop rotating, not become tidally locked, so the sun slowly dragged across the surface instead of focusing on one spot.

are you referring to the Aftermath series?if you are you are correct ,and the day night cycle would chang dramatically as 6 months of day ,and 6 months of nights.Not to mention a more predictable weather pattern mention in the episode.Also GPS would not function due to earth suddenly slowing down ,and air travel being scrapped due to this.Also would travel via water would be affect in a major way?

[Galacticruler]

Also would travel via water would be affect in a major way?

if there was any water left on the super-heated side of the earth, yes...if it required sails.

[Designer225]

No idea there, although stopping Earth from spinning is not impossible, though.

[brdavis]

Please explain. I welcome criticism as long as it is backed up.

I'd tend to agree with Steven Mading. The question, as stated, seems to be trying to find a physically reasonable answer to a situation that is not only physically impossible, but so poorly defined as to be meaningless. If some magical super-force were to slow the Earth rapidly to a (rotational) halt… why isn't that magical super force also acting on the crust, atmosphere, oceans, and poodles? first, you'd need to define in what way the Earth was "stopping", before you could even begin to talk (scientifically) about how other things (like poodles) would respond to "non-stopping".

Heck, Earth is slowing down now - it will never be tidally locked to the Sun (timescales much longer than 10 billion years required for that), although we might* end up locked one-faced to the Moon eventually (the "day" would equal the "month" at about 50 current days long… now that would make for a long work day). Even then, we'd still spin… and tidal forces are about the only thing I can think of that slows down the rotation of large bodies in space.

*I say "might" because when you figure in solar tides, the Moon starts having its orbit shrunk sometime after mutual tidal lock occurs, and the Moon is dropped into a lower orbit until it enter's Earth Roche limit… except the Sun would go all red giantish first, and anyway by the time the mutual tidal lock occurs the Moon is out nearly to the point of instability due to solar perturbations, so we might loose it after all.

[Depth]

There was a "documentary" on National Geographic about this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8SaPPV4Ov4

(Off topic: I really liked the population zero of the same series http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJLVUWEmayQ )

[Traches]

NOTHING can instantaneously stop, period. It requires an acceleration of infinity to do so. All scenarios in which you claim the earth stops must include how many seconds you're picturing it taking to do so. The answer cannot be zero seconds (to stop "instantaneously")

Even an object moving at only 0.000001 meters per second STILL requires infinite acceleration to stop in an instant.

Without that context of how many seconds you're talking about it taking for the Earth to stop, you're talking about a scenario that breaks all calculations using Newtonian physics anyway.

You'd be introducing everything on the planet to a Space Kraken bug.

But if we temporarily accept the absurd scenario, people need to remember that when you say "the earth" stops rotating you need to define what bits of mass are part of "the earth" and are thus included in that magical stopping. The talk about oceans sloshing, and tectonic plates shifting are rather predicated on treating these things like they're not part of the earth and are therefore not included in the statement "the earth stops rotating". Speaking of the earthquakes and magma effects from the shifting plates is basically a case of pretending the word "earth" is defined to only include the core and the mantle and not the crust.

All of this. Which is why I called it a dumb question earlier.