Why don’t I feel the Earth spinning?
I’m so dizzy my head is spinning…luckily gravity is a stronger force and counteracts the spinning feeling to keep us grounded.
Asked by: Dougie Parker (age 6)
If we are on a roundabout spinning quickly, we can feel a strange force that seems to want to throw us off. Our Earth is like a giant roundabout spinning in space at around 1,000km/h (as measured at the UK’s latitude). So why don’t we feel that same force really strongly? The reason is that there’s another force acting on us: gravity. This holds us to the ground about 1,000 times more strongly than the Earth’s spin is trying to throw us off.
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Authors
Robert is a science writer and visiting professor of science at Aston University.
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