now before I start I just want to say I do not agree with this theory. This theory is wrong. It has to be. But it is the worst and most confusing kind of theory…a theory that sounds logical…
…not correct, but logical…
If a plane were to take off from London and hover in the air, not fly anywhere just stay perfectly still in the air and let the earth revolve beneath it, in five hours time it would find it wasn’t hovering above London anymore but New York…
now as I said this can’t be true…can it?
80% it can’t be but I don’t know why, why can’t this be true?
Even if it’s in the air, the earth’s gravitational field still affects it and thus pulls it in the direction that the earth spins. Kind of like it had it on a string and spun around itself.
well say it wasn’t a plane, say some sort of plane/rocket hybrid that was able to take you into a higher orbit still in the earths atmosphere but free of gravity, able to breathe and float as well
The gravity of the earth only affects the Y-component or the vertical-component of the plane’s motion vector (or any other body suspended in air for that reason). It has NO affect on the X-component or the horizontal component and therefore will “NOT PULL ANYTHING ANYWHERE HORIZONTALLY”. (Replying to foodpk’s post) Since the plane has enough power to remain suspended in the air, it thereby defies the effect of gravity.
[ot]Example: When a bomb is dropped from a plane, after a time period say x, when the bomb hits the ground, the plane is exactly above that point at that very moment ‘delta t’ (as delta t approaches 0). This is a good enough example that gravity affects only the vertical component of the bomb’s motion and the initial velocity of the bomb is the same as the plane’s velocity when the bomb was dropped. [/ot]
This virtually makes the earth act as a non-inertial frame due to which this theory is correct. AND IS USED IN FLIGHT-TIME MANAGEMENT!
It is due to this reason why it takes longer in a plane to get from the US to Tokyo than from Tokyo to the US!
[ot]It’s quite possible that a part of my statement could be incorrect as I have been completely out of touch with all this for quite some time now. The basic funda is still correct however.[/ot]
Cars cannot be eliminated as they depend upon the friction of road for their travel. Which makes them an absolute SLAVE to the inertial nature of the earth’s gravitational system and thereby, not possible.
but for the original theory to work it would have to take an hour to travel the width of a timezone
might be a dumb and obvious question but are timezones spilt into the length of time it takes to travel them…they can’t be, can they
they’ve been around longer than planes
if it took one hour to travel from the edge of a timezone to the other then I can see this theory being correct. But at the moment it takes 7 and a half hours to fly from London to New York so it can’t be correct…can it?
As far as my unconfirmed facts are concerned they say that each longitude has a 15 minute time difference per degree. And thereby, your statement of “taking an hour to travel one time zone” is somewhat acceptable although I would expect it to be a lot slower.
From New York to London the same principle follows (although what I will mention now is not 100% confirmed by me)… Since, if a plane starts from New York to reach London, the plane will be moving in the same direction as that of the earth. OK, so some smart alec will come and say the earth doesn’t move, it rotates. Here’s a more mathematical point of view. At any given time, the velocity vector of the plane is parallel to the linear velocity vector of the earth which is itself tangetial at that point. Getting back to the plane now, since both the plane and the earth are moving in the same direction, it will take longer to reach London starting from New York than reach New York starting from London; because then the plane will be moving in the exact opposite direction of the earth and hence will take less time. Relativity! :thumb2:
For you the sun moves, for the sun YOU move. Simple.
And someone mentioned what happens if you just stand on a floor? Well if you’re standing on a floor, you’re standing at a level of a building. The building itself is firmly secured on the ground. The ground is a part of the earth and is fixed. Therefore YOU, stading on a floor, are a part of an INERTIAL FRAME OF REFERENCE and the plane/earth rule does not even nearly apply to you.
You have to allow for wind drag, this is what stops you from “hovering” as such. An aeroplane needs a certain amount of speed, to create an uplift from air running over/under the wings. The uplift cancels or becomes greater than the effect of gravity so the plane flies/cruises, but the uplift is related to a number of factors, the main one being the horizontal speed of the plane, hence it can’t hover as it needs a horizontal moment to fly. If it could hover, cancelling out the effect of gravity makes the object seemingly weightless, then wind and drag would move the aeroplane with the earth to some extent, so it would need a moment of exact opposite force to cancel out the effect of wind. So in theory nothing hovers whilst their is wind/air without exerting any energy, it needs a horizontal moment to even hover. Perfect hovering would be equidistance between two identical planets with no other forces acting on you, then in theory the planets would be moving without you moving. But you need to get away from the wind! As the air/wind applies friction due to its orbit/graviational relationship with the earth
I think, i’m working off some physics knowledge from 6 years ago
Thelonephoenix is right that flight time management needs to consider this as the earth helps you in one direction, but not the other.
Aah yes… I forgot to mention REALITY in the whole thing… Air drags count in the real world… They don’t in the bookish physical world at all though :lol:
No wonder I kept thinking that there was some missing link in my statements. Thanks for clearing that out dude! :thumb2:
Although the condition put forward was: “IF you could HOVER…” clearly stating that the theory was contemplated purely in a bookish format like we had in school… In reality there are a number of forces that would count.
The air drag, the plane’s own thrust to keep “hovering”, the density of the air in the region in question, THE WIND DIRECTION in that region etc.
Under ideal conditions, the theory makes completely perfect sense. In the real world it is somewhat true but not always.
We just have to imagine we’re in space, but even though its a vacuum, there are supposedly molecules flying around…escaped from orbits and such (like on the moon) so is there a perfect situation??? We’ll just leave it to the world of textbooks
Good to see I remembered something from physics :lol:
Someone may have said this already but i think it has to do with us having the same velocity as the earth, so we are going along with it’s rotation. If you are in space and are not spinning with the earth you can do what is said in post 1.
It depends entirely on your definition of perfectly still. Perfectly still relative to what? Relative to the Sun? Relative to the centre of the Earth? Relative to the centre of the universe? I’m still right now relative the centre of the earth, but most certainly not to the sun or the centre of the universe.
And also, you’re not weightless in orbit because of a lack of gravity, you’re weightless in orbit because you’re technically in a freefall. Here’s a good page on the topic: link
