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It's the earth that's moving

George Gearless

By George Gearless
in Imaging - Discussion

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George Gearless

George Gearless

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Posted (edited)

We all know it, but often forget it. We spend many hours trying to 'follow' a target in the night sky. But what we're realy doing is compensating for our own earths movement. I found this video quite thought provoking. Hope you haven't seen it before. Not sure but I thought this part of SGL was an appropriate place to post it.

 

It's the earth that's moving.

Edited by George Gearless
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callisto

callisto

Posted
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6 minutes ago, George Gearless said:

We all know it, but often forget it. We spend many hours trying to 'follow' a target in the night sky. But what we're realy doing is compensating for our own earths movement. I found this video quite thought provoking. Hope you haven't seen it before. Not sure but I thought this part of SGL was an appropriate place to post it.

 

It's the earth that's moving.

It does give you a different sense of "viewing" the night sky....thanks for posting :)

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Moonshed

Moonshed

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We are of course unable to feel the Earth moving but there is a way to perceive the motion of the Earth’s rotation.
On a clear night find a spot near a tree where you can observe a bright star from under the tree. Now lie down with your back flat on the ground, feet pointing east and stretch your arms out straight so you are making a T shape. Look at that bright star as it moves slowly upwards though those tiny branches or leaves, it is important that you can see the star actually moving so the gaps need to be very small. Now here comes the all important perception part. Close your eyes and imagine you are lying flat on your back on top of a truly massive, mind bogglingly huge beach ball. Dig your fingers into the grass and get a really good grip and hold on tight because the beach ball is going to start to slowly roll forward. Open your eyes and as you look at that star moving through the tree realise it is not the star moving but your beach ball with you on it as it very slowly rolls forward with you going feet first towards the eastern horizon. Feel the Earth move!

The experience for me was so real it actually made me feel dizzy. This was of course a good  many years ago when I was able to lay down on the grass and get back up again.

If you get the chance do try it, it will be the only time you actually feel the Earth move, I mean for real, not the other thing. 😆

 

Edited by Moonshed
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Ags

Ags

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On 23/12/2020 at 17:06, Mr Spock said:

It's all relative

Not really. The Earth spinning one way is not equivalent to the rest of Universe spinning the other way. From any frame of reference, we know the Earth is spinning.

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andrew s

andrew s

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16 minutes ago, Ags said:

Not really. The Earth spinning one way is not equivalent to the rest of Universe spinning the other way. From any frame of reference, we know the Earth is spinning.

Velocity is relative but acceleration is not. The earth is not an inertial frame hence accelerating.  You can choose coordinates in which the earth is not spinning but the equations of motion then  require pseudo forces e.g the coriolis force.

Regards Andrew 

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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Thanks for the post. It's one thing to know it, another to see it and feel it. I will try Moonshed's experiment to intensify the experience of feeling it.

One of the first shocks I had in looking through a telescope came in 'seeing the Earth's rotation.' As a provider I sometimes have first-time observers here and it isn't unusual for them to say just the same thing.  'That's the Earth moving... Wow.' 

We have grown up with the idea but it took humans a long time to accept that the earth is moving. As Einstein said, 'Common sense is the name given to that set of prejudices accumulated by age eighteen.'  I wonder what other fragments of our present day common sense will be discarded by future generations. Boy, would I ever love to know!

Olly

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Moonshed

Moonshed

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13 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

Everything's moving, the Earth rotating and whizzing round the Sun, the solar system whizzing round the Galaxy and the Galaxy whizzing through the Universe, no wonder I feel giddy 😂

Dave

Nah, it’s the drink makes you giddy, trud mi Im an ixpurt!

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Moonshed

Moonshed

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2 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

We have grown up with the idea but it took humans a long time to accept that the earth is moving. As Einstein said, 'Common sense is the name given to that set of prejudices accumulated by age eighteen.'  I wonder what other fragments of our present day common sense will be discarded by future generations. Boy, would I ever love to know!

Olly

Should the human race, by sheer chance and good luck, still be around in generations to come I would imagine they would look back at this period in Earth’s history and say “What on Earth were you thinking?”.

Edited by Moonshed
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