Earth stops spinning...?

[Dizzieblonde]

My friend (see his equally stupid Darryl Hannah missing finger question) insists that if the earth were to stop spinning abruptly, we would all be flicked off or pulled off. Would this be true? I think we would all float away.

[Skids]

The spinning of the Earth is exerting a centrifugal force on everything on its surface, which is to say that its already trying to throw us off the surface anyway. There is something else that keeps us on the surface that is exerting a force greater than the centrifugal force. This is known as gravity. This 'gravity' force is dependant on the mass of the Earth (all objects that have mass have gravity). As the Earth is really very heavy (high mass) its gravitational field is really rather strong. Gravity generated by an object is not influenced by the movement or spinning of that object. If the Earth stopped spinning, gravity would still keep us on it.

[gen2]

The circumference of the earth is about 24900 miles at the equator. That means that people living there travel 24900 miles in 24 hours. That equates to a speed of around 1037 miles per hour. If the earth were to come to an abrupt halt, then you (and any other objects on the earth's surface, including the oceans) would shoot off towards the horizon (at a tangent) at over 1000 mph. I don't think many would survive. People living further from the equator would travel at progressively slower speeds until at the poles, a person would remain stationary.

There would be another major effect of the earth stopping, and that concerns the conservation of energy. A rotating mass the size of the earth stores a huge amount of energy. That would be converted into heat and the effect of that on the earth's crust doesn't bear thinking about.

[Mudman]

If it stopped spinning now... We'd all be flat in a nanosec'.