Since the earth is constantly rotating, if you could jump high enough would you land on the same spot?

Answer 1

depends if u jump str8 up or diagnoly

Answer 2

No, unless you jump from the pole. Here is why.

I will start by supposing that you are on the equator (you could be anywhere else, and the effect would be less, but the equator simplifies the demonstration). At the equator, you go around once per 24 hours, and since the Earth is about 40074 km around this means you are travelling at 1669.75 km/hour relative to the Earth center. The earth radius is 6378 km at the equator. Now suppose you could jump right up 63 km from the surface (we will neglect the atmosphere and the wind pushing you off course, suppose we have a very large room that we emptied of all air), you are now 101% the radius of the earth from the center of the planet. In order to remain above the same spot, you would have to travel 1% faster, i.e. 16.7 km/hr faster or 1686.4 km/hr, in the direction of the earth rotation. But you jumped straight up, so you will actually fall a bit behind. Relative to a land based observer, it would seem like to jumped backward, receiving a push while up, but still landing with no apparent lateral motion by the time you make it back.

This virtual acceleration is called Coriolis force. And it plays a major role in determining the way hurricanes spin (since hurricanes involve air masses at various altitudes).

Answer 3

I think you've asked it backwards, but if you jump high enough you will land in a different spot.

When you jump, the earth rotates away underneath you, but you have inertia carrying you with the rotation of the earth. You would have to jump high enough that the difference between the rotated earth, and your tangential trajectory when you left the earth, would be measurable when you land. This would be ridiculously high indeed if you jumped straight up. You would probably have to be up in the air for several minutes, and the wind currents may move you enough that when you landed in a different spot it wasn't because of the effect you are looking for anyway.

Answer 4

If you could start jumping from a spot that wasn't affected by the earth spinning, then yes. The problem is that you're going to go straight up and down relative to the center of the earth... but you also have rotational momentum which is the same as the rotational momentum of the earth itself (but adjusted for your mass)... that means when you jump, you actually are jumping and orbiting the center of the earth at the same time. This would be obvious to an outside observer, but to you, it seems straight up and down. You need a second frame of reference to measure your rotation.

Answer 5

You'd land on the same spot. Here's a good analogy ... suppose you're in seat 14D on an airplane flying 500 mph at 30,000 feet over Kansas. You toss a ball straight up, and then you catch it. The ball, of course, came down into your hand, just where you threw it from.

When you stand on the ground, you're revolving along with the ground under your feet and the air that's around you, assuming no wind. When you jump, you'll land in the same place.

Now, you did say, "if you jump high enough." If you could jump into the stratosphere and pick up the jet stream, then I'm sure you'd land somewhere else, because you'd be blown away.

Answer 6

The fact that it's rotating doesn't make a difference where you land because you are rotating along with it at the same speed. If you jump, you are just adding a radial component to your trajectory and that won't make a difference where you land.

However, you WOULD land in a different spot because the wind is blowing. Thus, you would be blown off course.

Answer 7

Earths satellites are in geostationary orbit so the remain in a stationary or fixed position above the same area of the planet.They are placed to orbit at the same rotational speed that the Earth rotates.So if you could jump twenty three thousand metres you would land back in roughly the same area allowing for weather conditions.Mind you I don't believe I'm attempting to answer this as you'd have to jump through the troposphere,stratosphere,ionosphere then the bloody exosphere."YOU'D HAVE NO CHANCE" Plus that's carrying breathing apparatus.

Answer 8

Yes - and No.

IF you could jump high enough, "high enough" would be outside of the escape velocity needed to get out of earth's gravitational field. If you could jump that high, then you would not land in the same spot - mostly because you would have escaped gravity, and thus would NOT FALL back to earth - you'd be floating in space.
The earth is traveling at over 50K miles per sec. When we jump, we are still moving at that speed. Even if you could just jump say 500ft in the air, you'd still be moving at 50K m/per sec. Thus, you would still land in the same general area (allowing of course for wind to affect where you land, etc.)

Answer 9

even without the earth rotating u wouldn't land on same spot of take-off due to air resistance and controlled precision. also gravity does its part by exerting a centripetal force which act along a line formed by three points i.e, your new position above the earth surface,old position&yhe earth's core.this force pulls you back to your old position, tending towards the earth's core on the other hand, the earth's movement is a very smell i mean small one hence such observation of position alteration can be negligible. if this does not give you an answer, don't hesitate to send me a mail to: [e-mail] i'd love to offer you my knowledge.

Answer 10

The Earth rotates from west to east about its axis.The further you are from its axis the faster you have to move eastwards to keep up with the point on the surface below you.So if you took off vertically in a rocket and baled out, all the time you were airborne you'd be drifting westwards. But of course you'd need to reach a height of hundreds of kilometres for the effect to be noticeable.

Answer 11

Yes, because the rotational speed of the earth is also imparted on your jump, so you will still be rotating with the earth, unless you jumped so high that you wouldn't come down at all (out of gravitational range).