Do you (U/ghost_of_aswartz) still believe we went to the Moon?
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You got me thinking quite hard with this, I think this is on the right track:
Imagine a sealed tube travelling on the ground, with you inside it, the whole set up going 50 mph west.
If you jumped while standing in the tube, it wouldn’t travel underneath you (50mph * 2 second hang time), you and the air in the tube and the tube itself are all moving the same velocity in the same direction, so when you jump you come down in the same (relative) spot in the tube.
Likewise, if you decided to walk from west to east inside this tube, you would not need to overcome a countering westward force (the tubes westward 50mph velocity), for the same reason. The air in the tube is already a part of the closed system of the tube, it isn’t an “extra” force you have to overcome because you are already in equilibrium with it by virtue of being inside the tube.
Then you apply this metaphor to the earth herself. The atmosphere is the air in the tube, and the tube is the (relatively) closed system known as “earth + atmosphere”. Any part of that seem off to you?
I think the key thing to understand here is the closed system and what it means. To explain, and try to incorporate your examples, I’ll try:
Imagine a glass aquarium, even one complex enough to have currents inside it (for example a little submerged air jet in one corner which makes the water circulate around the aquarium). So inside this aquarium we have the examples you’ve mentioned, a mini-surfer would have to expend extra energy to move against the current generated by the air jet, or the surfer could ride the current such that he moves with it while expending less energy than if he attempted to stay stationary.
That’s just the system of the aquarium however, a closed system I constructed for the example. Now imagine that the aquarium is placed on a truck bed and the truck+aquarium system is smoothly accelerated to, for example, 50mph westward. If we return to the mini surfer, nothing has changed from his perspective (since we accelerated smoothly no extra disturbances have been introduced to the aquarium, the air jet induced current is exactly how it would have been if the aquarium had stayed “stationary”). At this point you could even put the westerly driving truck on a planet rotating easterly at (1/24 * earth’s circumference) miles per hour, and it would likewise not change the scenario inside the aquarium, nor even for the truck, or even an airplane.
This applies to all of your examples, the tide, water currents, and air currents, as they are all representative of forces within the system that our object is trying to reach equilibrium with. Zoomed out, you’ll see that the planet (including the atmosphere) is the closed aquarium system. Everything’s already in equilibrium so there’s nothing to overcome. (Currents are just small localized zones of the system which are not yet equilibriated, because our “aquarium” is so big and multifaceted, small pockets of non-equilibrium can occur).
So if you are already in equilibrium with the planets rotation, you will, like the mini surfer, never notice this “force” nor need to account for it in your simple calculations such as flight times, assuming negligible wind (wind being air motion that isnt brought about by the rotation of the earth+atmosphere but by things like temperature gradients from the equator north or south, or any number of causes). That all make any more sense?
Edit: to summarize, the trucks westward velocity in this example is analogous to the planets easterly rotation. Since the acceleration happens smoothly and never stops, when you were born you were in equilibrium with the system because your parents and everything else in our closed system is already, you never leave equilibrium with the movement,and thus it can be ignored in your calculations and it appears “non-existent”