This message is in reference to an old SD by Cecil concerning the effect of the Earth not spinning.
While Cecil correctly notes that there is little change in gravity, there is another obvious effect that Cecil does not mention.
The effect of continuous sunlight / darkness for a large portion of the year (especially near the areas on earth where the sun is overhead) would cause severe climatological conditions. Yet, no mention at all from Cecil?
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Cecil’s original column can be found on-line at this link:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a961122a.html
You’re welcome, Arnold 
(pant pant pant) I got here as first as I could.
What Musicat said.
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Well, the question that was asked wasn’t, “What would happen if the Earth stopped spinning?” It was:
While Cecil would, I’m sure, be happy to pontificate all day on the importance of fast rotation in the earthly climate, the ogres he works for short-sightedly alot him a finite space.
Synthoid, if the earth stopped spinning suddenly, all objects not firmly tied down (like you, me and the cat in my lap) would, according to Newton’s laws, continue on their original path and speed and attempt to fly away from the earth on a tangent. It would be a big hassle to air traffic controllers.
Some interesting thoughts: Since the circumference of the Earth is about 25,000 miles at the equator, [ref:] http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/04209.html and the planet rotates about once a 24-hour day, the speed of a loose object on the equator would be about 1000 MPH relative to the center of the earth. It would be quite a bad hair day to instantly accelerate to 1000 MPH.
But it wouldn’t be fast enough to permanently fly off the surface, since an escape velocity of 25,000 MPH is needed to do that, at least in Florida. And you would be traveling at a tangent to the planet, not straight up, so your effective vertical speed would be less. (I left my trig calc in my other pants, so you’ll have to do the math yourself.)
This fact puts the Bible’s Long Day of Joshua (where God supposedly stopped the sun and moon so his chosen people could finish their slaughter by daylight) pretty much in the myth category.
Note that that's why NASA launches from as far south as possible and in an easterly direction. The shuttle gets something like half capacity if launched into a polar orbit.
Neglecting air resistance, the vector is irrelevant so long as it doesn't intersect the planet. This matters, as it means that a catapault on the surface of a body can launch stuff. It's not too useful for a body with an atmosphere, but for lunar mining...
If God can stop the Earth, he can also stop whatever's on it. More relevant is the fact that the Chinese didn't note a very long day.Loren Pechtel said:
And the French get an even greater boost by launching their rockets from French Guiana, almost on the Equator.
Quite true, but this is a philosophical or theological argument, not a scientific one. A more scientific statement is
Neither did anyone else. Right on.
Yes, but that’s not to the point. The entire claim of a miracle is that something happened requiring a local violation of physical laws. To say that a miracle didn’t happen because it would have violated the laws of physics is parallel to saying that a crime didn’t happen because it would have violated the laws of the state. Or to put it another way:
Non-believer: That’s impossible!
Believer: Does the word, “Duh!” mean anything to you?
If God can stop the Earth and whatever’s on it, he should also be able to stop just sections of it where his believers are. Or, as is probably easier, he could just induce mass hallucinations in a particular group of people, for instance convincing the Chinese that the day was just as long as it’s ever been.
Well, now we are going to have to get into theology, if we’re going to continue this. Let’s just say that few serious Xtian theologians would accept the above, as it flys right in the face of the Law of Divine Parsimony.
I went and read the link (SAB: Joshua 10) and it actually just says something about how the sun didn’t go down for a whole day (paraphrasing.) And I have to admit I immediately thought well, of course the sun didn’t go down for a whole day, that’s the definition of a day. 
I know, I know, don’t flame me, but semantically there’s no miracle there at all…it quite clearly says the sun was just up for one day. What was meant is still open for debate.
(post edited to fix link)
[Edited by Arnold Winkelried on 03-26-2001 at 12:26 PM]
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Interesting interpretation. If you are right, the theologians that have been using this as an example of God’s power have been wasting their time all along!
The biblical passage of Joshua 10:12,13, King James version, I believe, is:
Perhaps knowledge of the original Hebrew would be useful here, but “the sun stood still” (said twice, no less) is pretty clear to me.
said by JWK:
Afraid I don’t follow your analogy, John. Simple Newtonian physics suggests that the sun and moon didn’t stand still over any part of the earth. Historical records from the Chinese suggest that it didn’t happen on the other side of the globe, either. It seems to require not only one miracle to violate known laws of physics, but another miracle to keep anyone from noticing! We are building up quite of mass of fantastic entities here to explain what has all the earmarks of a tribal myth from relatively ignorant people.
Oh yeah.
So ignorant that they didn’t know that the sun usually rises and sets every 24 hours.
So ignorant that even when they wrote about a violation of that as being an exceptional event, they also, at the same time, thought it was completely normal.
That makes sense.
I suppose you also think that people living in the Roman Empire 2000 years ago didn’t know where babies come from, and regarded walking on water as an everyday occurence.
As to the lack of Chinese evidence, I have already addressed that elsewhere.
John, you sound like a “true believer” to me, so I doubt anything I say will be seriously considered, so here goes nothing:
It wasn’t normal to them, which is why they wrote about it. But it was possible to them, something that I find hard to believe really happened without postulating multiple deity interventions.
In the words of Carl Sagan, “Belief in demons was widespread in the ancient world. They were thought of as natural rather than supernatural beings.” (from The Demon Haunted World, Chapter 7, par 2)
Everyday, perhaps not. But Roman, Greek, Babylonian, Egyptian, and other cultures of the era are full of stories of what would have had to be supernatural events if they occurred at all – and those stories are readily tagged “myths” today. But similar stories from the ancient Hebrew culture, with as much factual foundation as Roman and Greek ones, are, because the Judaic/Christian religion is still going strong, called “miracles.”
It wouldn’t be too hard for me to find an Greek myth and prove it unlikely to have happened; this probably wouldn’t upset many people. But is anyone seriously arguing, for example, that the opening of Pandora’s box is the cause of all evil in the world? Treat a biblical reference the same way, and someone feels their god is being threatened.
I can’t provide a cite for this, but I remember hearing recently that the Egyptians thought that only sperm was the human reproductive material, and the female was merely a receptacle (“vessel”) for it, not an equal partner in the sperm-egg process. If true, I guess they would be somewhat ignorant about “where babies come from.”
I seriously doubt if the ancients, tho admirable for what they did accomplish, had the scientfic knowledge of the 18th century, not to mention the 21st.
Wait a minute, I’m 
Did Cecil’s column mention the Bible or Joshua? No, I don’t think it did. Not that my goal in life is to stifle discussion, but if we’re going to get into the issue of “is the Bible true?” then perhaps «Great Debates» would be a better forum.
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Bravo! I heartily agree, Arnold!
Interesting how easily threads can become hijacked, eh? Someone calls an aside-statement stupid, and it’s difficult not to reply.
I’m not discussing “Is the Bible true?”
I’m discussing sloppy logic, both in reading the Bible and (by the way) in reading me.
But I should know by now that you can’t argue with slogan-chanting bigots. So this will be, if possible, my last post.
(By the way, the dispute between “spermists” and “ovists” continued into the age of the microscope. But what on earth would the “spermist” position do in support of a naturalistic explanation of the Virgin Birth? Sloppy, sloppy logic.)
John W. Kennedy, I hope you meant your last post in this thread, and not your last post on the board! :eek:
And by the way, I trust that the side discussion is now officially closed, and that no one feels the need to add any more commentary on the subject. The discussion can be continued in Great Debates or in The BBQ Pit if tempers are high.
Also let me remind you all that personal insults are not allowed in this forum.
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