I'll assume you're being serious and actually try to give you an answer. I'm not qualified to address most of these questions, but the one about a plane having to fly 1500mph to fly west to east really concerns me regarding your grasp of physics. Frame of reference is a really important concept to understand before you can reliably make observations about the world around you.
The earth's atmosphere, while loose and able to move around through winds and weather patterns, is still a part of earth, and is subject to the earth's rotation just like the water in a spinning glass on a turntable. Spin it for long enough and the water inside will maintain the same rotation as the glass.
Ignoring local wind currents, there is little difference between flying east or west, although the days will pass slightly faster as you fly east and slightly slower when flying west. The atmosphere (which planes need in order to fly) spins with the earth, everything on earth spins with the earth, and thus, the earth is our frame of reference. Unless you are approaching earth from space, outside the influence of our atmosphere, the ground beneath your feet will always be your frame of reference.
If this still isn't making sense, compare getting into a plane with climbing onto a motor boat. Both air and water are subject to earth's rotation, and the vehicles create thrust by pushing air/water backwards in order to go forwards.
I'm not trying to be rude, but if I can so easily pick apart one of your arguments I do understand, why should I assume your other arguments would hold up to similar scrutiny?
I appreciate your sincerity and detailed reply. I'm happy to read through your explanation and address your points. You don't sound rude to me and thank you for taking the time to address the points succinctly.
Yes, I understand the frame of reference used for kinematic and relativistic motions.
Yes, I'm acknowledging the point that you made that the plane flies within the atmosphere moving in the rotation of the Earth.
I use the 1500 mph example since the Earth's rotation is calculated to be 1000 mph, right? And I'm estimating that the plane is flying at 500 mph.
Using an external frame of reference from space, as you mentioned, the plane would need to be flying at 1500 mph as an external observer watches a plane travel from LA to NYC, right? Because if it did not reach that speed to an external observer, then it could never catch up to its destination.
Then, using the Earth's frame of reference, the plane would be moving at 500 mph within the atmosphere.
So, moving WITH the direction of the rotation would be easier or more difficult? At the point in the questioning, the birds and helicopters example starts bending these rules of reality...
As for your comment about the days passing faster or slower depending on the direction, doesn't that just tie in with the time zones? If I leave at 6 am Pacific from LA to Dallas on a 3-hour flight, I should get there at 11 am Central or 9 am Pacific. We're nowhere near traveling at the speed of 0.1c or much higher for time dilation or contraction to happen.
And for the water spinning in glass example, I can do that experiment right now to see it. But what's the experiment look like with a wet tennis ball? Wouldn't all of the water move outwards?
Thank you and everyone else for the replies to my part of this discussion. I'm happy to keep reading and replying later in the day.
Correct, you seem to have a good grasp on frame of reference, so I'm unsure where the confusion is. If we are talking about an outside observer, let say someone on the moon, a plane would move visibly faster or slower depending on whether it was traveling east or west (due to the rotation of the earth relative to the moon). However, that sort of frame of reference does not give us useful information and the position of the observer has no impact on the plane itself, only the observer's perception of it.
It is neither easier nor harder for the plane to travel west or east. From the plane's frame of reference, minus local weather currents, there is no difference, and ignoring the time zone change, flights from LA to NY and NY to LA should take about the same length of time, with about the same amount of effort by the plane. Time dilation has nothing to do with it, and time zones are completely arbitrary, they only exist to normalize the experience of a 24-hour day for everyone around the world. I have a friend who lives in India and we almost are almost never online at the same time since he is sleeping while I'm awake and vice versa, even though we both wake up around 9am locally.
As far as the water on the surface of a tennis ball, the water will gather towards the "equator" as the tennis ball spins around, however this is actually an observable phenomenon, the earth itself is known to be slightly oval (ellipsoid) shaped due to the distortion along this rotation axis. My main point regarding the glass example was more to demonstrate that the atmosphere is a part of earth and will always match the earth's rotation, minus local weather. If it did not, we would constantly be experiencing western winds of roughly 1000mph, which would be catastrophic.
I'll assume you're being serious and actually try to give you an answer. I'm not qualified to address most of these questions, but the one about a plane having to fly 1500mph to fly west to east really concerns me regarding your grasp of physics. Frame of reference is a really important concept to understand before you can reliably make observations about the world around you.
The earth's atmosphere, while loose and able to move around through winds and weather patterns, is still a part of earth, and is subject to the earth's rotation just like the water in a spinning glass on a turntable. Spin it for long enough and the water inside will maintain the same rotation as the glass.
Ignoring local wind currents, there is little difference between flying east or west, although the days will pass slightly faster as you fly east and slightly slower when flying west. The atmosphere (which planes need in order to fly) spins with the earth, everything on earth spins with the earth, and thus, the earth is our frame of reference. Unless you are approaching earth from space, outside the influence of our atmosphere, the ground beneath your feet will always be your frame of reference.
If this still isn't making sense, compare getting into a plane with climbing onto a motor boat. Both air and water are subject to earth's rotation, and the vehicles create thrust by pushing air/water backwards in order to go forwards.
I'm not trying to be rude, but if I can so easily pick apart one of your arguments I do understand, why should I assume your other arguments would hold up to similar scrutiny?
I appreciate your sincerity and detailed reply. I'm happy to read through your explanation and address your points. You don't sound rude to me and thank you for taking the time to address the points succinctly.
Yes, I understand the frame of reference used for kinematic and relativistic motions.
Yes, I'm acknowledging the point that you made that the plane flies within the atmosphere moving in the rotation of the Earth.
I use the 1500 mph example since the Earth's rotation is calculated to be 1000 mph, right? And I'm estimating that the plane is flying at 500 mph.
Using an external frame of reference from space, as you mentioned, the plane would need to be flying at 1500 mph as an external observer watches a plane travel from LA to NYC, right? Because if it did not reach that speed to an external observer, then it could never catch up to its destination.
Then, using the Earth's frame of reference, the plane would be moving at 500 mph within the atmosphere.
So, moving WITH the direction of the rotation would be easier or more difficult? At the point in the questioning, the birds and helicopters example starts bending these rules of reality...
As for your comment about the days passing faster or slower depending on the direction, doesn't that just tie in with the time zones? If I leave at 6 am Pacific from LA to Dallas on a 3-hour flight, I should get there at 11 am Central or 9 am Pacific. We're nowhere near traveling at the speed of 0.1c or much higher for time dilation or contraction to happen.
And for the water spinning in glass example, I can do that experiment right now to see it. But what's the experiment look like with a wet tennis ball? Wouldn't all of the water move outwards?
Thank you and everyone else for the replies to my part of this discussion. I'm happy to keep reading and replying later in the day.
Correct, you seem to have a good grasp on frame of reference, so I'm unsure where the confusion is. If we are talking about an outside observer, let say someone on the moon, a plane would move visibly faster or slower depending on whether it was traveling east or west (due to the rotation of the earth relative to the moon). However, that sort of frame of reference does not give us useful information and the position of the observer has no impact on the plane itself, only the observer's perception of it.
It is neither easier nor harder for the plane to travel west or east. From the plane's frame of reference, minus local weather currents, there is no difference, and ignoring the time zone change, flights from LA to NY and NY to LA should take about the same length of time, with about the same amount of effort by the plane. Time dilation has nothing to do with it, and time zones are completely arbitrary, they only exist to normalize the experience of a 24-hour day for everyone around the world. I have a friend who lives in India and we almost are almost never online at the same time since he is sleeping while I'm awake and vice versa, even though we both wake up around 9am locally.
As far as the water on the surface of a tennis ball, the water will gather towards the "equator" as the tennis ball spins around, however this is actually an observable phenomenon, the earth itself is known to be slightly oval (ellipsoid) shaped due to the distortion along this rotation axis. My main point regarding the glass example was more to demonstrate that the atmosphere is a part of earth and will always match the earth's rotation, minus local weather. If it did not, we would constantly be experiencing western winds of roughly 1000mph, which would be catastrophic.