Why can’t we feel Earth’s spin?

Earth spins on its axis once in every 24-hour day. At Earth’s equator, the speed of Earth’s spin is
about 1,000 miles per hour (1,600 kph). The day-night has carried you around in a grand circle
under the stars every day of your life, and yet you don’t feel Earth spinning. Why not? It’s
because you and everything else – including Earth’s oceans and atmosphere – are spinning along
with the Earth at the same constant speed.

It’s only if Earth stopped spinning, suddenly, that we’d feel it. Then it would be a feeling similar
to riding along in a fast car, and having someone slam on the brakes!

Think about riding in a car or flying in a plane. As long as the ride is going smoothly, you can
almost convince yourself you’re not moving. A jumbo jet flies at about 500 miles per hour
(about 800 km per hour), or about half as fast as the Earth spins at its equator. But, while you’re
riding on that jet, if you close your eyes, you don’t feel like you’re moving at all. And when the
flight attendant comes by and pours coffee into your cup, the coffee doesn’t fly to the back of the
plane. That’s because the coffee, the cup and you are all moving at the same rate as the plane.

Now think about what would happen if the car or plane wasn’t moving at a constant rate, but
instead speeding up and slowing down. Then, when the flight attendant poured your coffee …
look out!

If you’re drinking coffee in a steadily moving car or airplane, no problem. But if the car or plane speeds
up or slows down, your coffee sloshes and maybe spills. Likewise, as long as Earth spins steadily, we
can’t feel it move.

Earth is moving at a fixed rate, and we’re all moving along with it, and that’s why we don’t feel
Earth’s spin. If Earth’s spin were suddenly to speed up or slow down, you would definitely feel
it.

The constant spin of the Earth had our ancestors pretty confused about the true nature of the
cosmos. They noticed that the stars, and the sun and the moon, all appeared to move above the
Earth. Because they couldn’t feel Earth move, they logically interpreted this observation to mean
that Earth was stationary and “the heavens” moved above us.

With the notable exception of the early Greek scientist Aristarchus, who first proposed a
heliocentric (sun-centered) model of the universe hundreds of years B.C.E., the world’s great
thinkers upheld the geocentric (Earth-centered) idea of the cosmos for many centuries.

It wasn’t until the 16th Century that the heliocentric model of Copernicus began to be discussed
and understood. While not without errors, Copernicus’ model eventually convinced the world
that Earth spun on its axis beneath the stars … and also moved in orbit around the sun.

Bottom line: Why don’t we feel Earth rotating, or spinning, on its axis? It’s because Earth spins steadily –
and moves at a constant rate in orbit around the sun – carrying you as a passenger right along with it.
Here's Why We Don't Feel Earth's Rotation, According to Science
It should not come as a surprise to you that our planet, with its atmosphere and everything on it,
is constantly spinning. At the equator the speed of rotation is about 1,675 kilometres per hour
(1,040 mph), which means that right this very moment, you're travelling at something like 465
metres per second, or a little less if you're located closer to one of the poles.

So why can't we all feel it? The answer lies in the nature of Earth's movement. Think of being on
an aeroplane when it's smoothly travelling at a constant speed and constant altitude. You've
unbuckled your seatbelt to go on a walk down the aisle, but you can't feel the movement of the
plane. The reason is simple: you, the plane, and everything else inside it is travelling at the same
speed. In order to perceive the movement of the plane, you have to glance at the clouds outside.

It's the same with Earth's rotation - our planet completes a full turn around its axis every 23 hours
and 56 minutes, spinning incessantly at an almost entirely constant rate. One way to feel motion
is to feel wind on your face - but remember that Earth's atmosphere is travelling with us at the
same speed.

If Earth were to change acceleration, we'd certainly feel that, and it wouldn't be pleasant, like a
sudden slam on the brakes at a planetary scale (while the atmosphere would keep moving at the
same 465 metres per second and wipe the surface of the planet). But just like we can't feel the
constant movement of a plane, the spin of our gigantic space ride is normally imperceptible, too.

So why does Earth spin so constantly? Because there's nothing stopping it. When our Solar
System formed out of a collapsing dust cloud and spun out into a flattened accretion disk with a
bulge in the middle, all the planets inherited that rotation. The Sun, all our neighbouring planets,
their moons, and everything else scattered in our system is still spinning after billions of years
because of inertia.

To interfere with that, an external unbalanced force would have to be applied - in simple terms,
the whole shindig would have to collide with some other object, and throw the rotation into
disarray.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, the spin of our planet is happening at an almost constant rate. If
we're being precise, Earth is slowing down ever so slightly thanks to the Moon being a bit of a
gravitational drag. It pulls on the tidal bulge of our planet, which causes tidal friction, putting
energy into the Moon's orbit.

As a result, sometimes we need to add an extra second to our clocks, because Earth's rotation is
slowing down by two-thousandths of a second every day. However, because this change in speed
is so infinitesimally small, for our purposes, it still feels like Earth is rotating at a constant rate.
In other words, it feels like nothing at all.
Congratulations: you’re currently spinning at about 1,000 miles an hour without even trying!
That’s how fast the Earth has to turn to make a complete rotation every day. So why can’t you
feel it? Your stomach goes all topsy-turvy when you spin around on a merry-go-round, and that’s
a lot slower than 1,000 miles per hour.

You can’t feel yourself spinning on Earth for the same reason that you can’t feel yourself moving
while you’re on a train. That’s because Earth and the train are both what physicists call “frames
of reference.” Frames of reference are kind of like perspectives. A person standing on a train has
one perspective—one frame of reference—and a person standing on a station platform has
another.

If you were standing on the station platform, you would clearly see the surface was standing still
while the train whizzed by. But from the inside, you’d feel like you were standing still while the
world moved by. From either frame of reference, you feel like you’re the one staying still.
Onboard the train, the world moves. Standing on the platform, the train moves.

The same is true of Earth and space, but at bigger scales. From inside the Earth’s frame of
reference, we can’t tell that we’re spinning. But if we viewed Earth from the frame of reference
of space, we would be able to see the twirling instantly.

And just like passengers seated on a train, we don’t have any clues—like wind rushing through
our hair—to make us realize how fast we’re going. The air inside the train (and the atmosphere
that surrounds our planet) moves along at the same speed we do.

There is one important difference between a train and Earth. When a train slows down or speeds
up, we can feel the resulting force on our bodies. That’s because of a basic law of physics: force
= mass * acceleration. Your body is the mass, and when acceleration is zero—when the train is
moving at a constant speed—there’s no force on your body. You can’t feel it. But when the train
changes speed by either accelerating or decelerating, there’s a force (and if you’re standing up, it
might just manage to knock you over).

Since most trains don’t zip around without ever changing speed, we can actually tell we're in
motion quite often. The Earth doesn’t ever slow down or speed up. But if it did, oh boy would
we feel it! And it would be the same sensation that you get on a slowing train.

Fortunately, our planet isn’t going to suddenly slow down or speed up like that, which means we
won’t ever get that feeling that tells us we’re moving.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t observe the Earth spinning from right here on the ground. The
Sun and Moon rise in the east and set in the west because of the direction we’re rotating in. If
you set up a video camera pointed at the night sky, you’ll be able to see the stars moving, too.
From our frame of reference, it looks like those objects are sliding past us. Remember: that’s just
how we see it. From the Sun’s point of view, we’re all spinning in circles.

Earth moves very fast. It spins (rotates) at a speed of about 1,000 miles (1600 kilometers) per hour and
orbits around the Sun at a speed of about 67,000 miles (107,000 kilometers) per hour. We do not feel
any of this motion because these speeds are constant. The spinning and orbital speeds of Earth stay the
same so we do not feel any acceleration or deceleration. You can only feel motion if your speed
changes. For example, if you are in a car which is moving at a constant speed on a smooth surface, you
will not feel much motion. However, when the car accelerates or when the brakes are applied, you do
feel motion.

Because several things; First, the Earth moves very smoothly and continuously without changing speed
or bumping like a car in a bad road. This super smooth motion by itself is enough to trick you in thinking
it doesn’t move. Second, the Earth is huge, everything around you moves along, so you don’t have a
reference point to tell it is moving. When you are inside a car, you can see the buildings and trees
outside, so you know the car is moving, well, you could say the buildings and the trees are moving.
Third, the Earth’s gravity pushes you downwards so strongly that your muscles work to keep you straight
up, eliminating any subtle sensibility of the planet moving. But it moves, and fast. The surface close to
the Equator runs at 1000 miles per hour, it is fast.

Sorry it took me so long to respond to your question - hopefully it's not too late for an answer!

I guess I'll start out by talking about the bus part of the question. If you and an apple get on a
bus, and the bus starts moving down the street, you and the apple will both have the same
velocity as the bus. (That makes sense, right, because you're both moving along.) In order to stop
something that's moving, you need to use a force to slow it down, just like you need to use a
force to get things moving in the first place. (For example, see this previously asked question.)
There's a physics law (Newton's first law of motion) which tells us that "objects in motion tend
to stay in motion". So, when you throw the apple in the air while on the bus, it's already moving
forward at the same speed as the bus, and there's essentially no force to slow down it's motion in
this direction (assuming it doesn't bounce off the ceiling). Therefore, while it's in the air, the
apple moves forward with you, the bus, and the other passengers, and it comes down in your
hand.

It's the same deal with the Earth. We're all on the moving Earth, and we're travelling at the same
speed as Earth. So when we jump up, we keep travelling around at the same speed we were
moving at before because there's no force to stop us. Now, if a huge force was applied to the
solid Earth (like a big impact) and caused it to stop spinning in a single instant, we'd be in
trouble because the Earth would have stopped moving, but since no force was applied to us, we'd
still be travelling at the same speed we were going before the impact (really fast). I guess if all
the people were glued to the Earth, then the force of the impact would translate to us as well and
we would slow down, but in reality we're free to fly forward.

I think a car accident is a good analogy for this. If you're travelling really fast down the road and
the car stops very suddenly (like you hit something), then your body will fly forward because
you had a forward velocity and will tend to stay in motion in that direction. If you're stuck to the
car with a seatbelt, you'll stay in the car because the seatbelt exerts a force that holds you in
place. But if you're not wearing a seatbelt you may well fly out of the car. Similarly, if Earth
stopped really fast and we weren't held down, we would fly pretty fast. But as long as Earth is
moving, we move around with it so that when we jump up, we're actually moving up and around
at the same time such that we come down in the same place.

Believe it or not, even when you’re sitting still in a chair, you’re always moving. That’s because
the Earth itself is always moving—and fast! At the equator (ee-KWAY-tor), an invisible line
that wraps around the middle of the Earth, the planet is actually spinning at about 1000 miles per
hour. That’s almost twice as fast as most planes!

Picture yourself in the back seat of a car driving on a highway. Do you feel like you're moving?
No! Now look out the window of this car. You can see the world zipping by … but you feel still.
You can't feel it because you and the car are moving together at the same speed. The same thing
happens with the Earth. You (and I) are moving at the same speed as the Earth, so we can't feel it
move.

Everything in the universe rotates on its own axis, which is an invisible straight line that runs through an
object from one end to the other. We call our ends the North Pole and the South Pole. Earth rotates
around this axis, just like a spinning top. It takes 24 hours to rotate one time. One rotation equals one
day! Every morning when you wake up, the Earth is in the very same place. It starts a whole new spin as
you start a brand new day.

The Earth travels at a constant rate, which means it doesn’t speed up or slow down like a car
does. Just like with the car window, we can only tell we’re spinning because we can see the
Moon orbit around us, and what seems to be the movement of the Sun and stars. (Really, they
move too slowly for us to see.) If Earth were suddenly to change speeds, we would feel a really
big jolt. It would be like a driver slamming on the car brakes.

Why can't a plane fly slowly and let the Earth pass
underneath? (Beginner)

The reason an airplane can't just idle and let the ground pass underneath is the same reason as
why a ball dropped from a tall tower lands at the base of the tower and not next to it. A plane
sitting on the ground is moving with the surface of the Earth, and while it appears to us to be at
rest, it is actually moving at around 1,000 miles an hour (the exact value depends on your
latitude). When it takes off, it still has speed from sitting on the ground. In order to fly east, the
plane increases its speed relative to the surface of the Earth and begins to overtake it. Flying west
it decreases its speed relative to the surface of the Earth, and the Earth slips by.

Here's a thought experiment. Imagine three moving walkways with a person standing on each
one. Now let the person on the left walkway walk forward in the same direction as the walkway,
the person in the center stay standing, and the person on the right walk backward in the opposite
direction. All three people are moving in the direction that the walkway is moving, but the two
people walking are moving in that direction more quickly and less quickly, respectively, than the
person at rest. When the plane is sitting on the ground, it is like the person standing still on the
moving walkway. The two people walking in same direction and opposite direction of the
walkway are like the plane in air.