Earth is round in shape with gravity to pull down and is rotating, so how doesn't the man fall from the edge?

Question

My son, studying in Class-3, raised this question that :

When the earth is round in shape like a ball, rotating and having gravity to pull down any object only ONTO it (but not from its surface), in that case, how can the man / object not fall down while on motion as anything (object) is placed on a real play-ball and the ball is slowly rotated by hand, that object will definitely fall down from the ball onto earth. Similarly, when the man himself is standing on the rotating earth which is also like a ball, how can the man or any object not fall from it?

Can you please answer this? However, my earlier question was of the similar type. But, I may be provided a comparison type of answer from 'Man on the Earth' to 'Object on a Play-Ball'.

Thanks & Regards,

V.Mallikarjuna Rao

Answer 1

because it moves slow.

Answer 2

1) All objects, even you, have gravity. The earth has more mass than you so naturally its gravity is stronger.2) In all objects (both you and the earth for example) the gravity appears to be concentrated at the center of the object (the center of the earth and your center of gravity) 3) The center of gravity of all objects attract each other. In other words, imagine (bear with me, this is a silly example) the center of the earth and the center of you were connected by a giant imaginary rubber band. You would then be able to walk anywhere on the earth without falling off. Now. To answer your other questions. If the earth were rotating really fast the rubber band would be stretched and you would be thrown off into space. The speed at which this would occur is called the escape velocity and it's exactly how satellites are launched. Finally, the ball you mentioned and the object placed on it will attract each other but since the ball is so small the attraction is weak. The playground where the ball is located is on the earth which has a much stronger gravity and the objects release themselves from the ball and fall to earth. Weak rubber band between ball and object and strong rubber band between earth and object. If we were in outer space with no other source of gravity nearby the objects would be attracted to the ball. You realize, I hope, that there really isn't a rubber band. It's just the force of gravitational attraction between all objects in the universe.

Answer 3

Gravity is an attractive force pulling everything down towards the centre of the spherical Earth.
If an object is thrown 'Up in the air', or a man flies 'Up', gravity pulls the man / object back towards the center of the earth. Of course, the object / man stops being pulled when he hits the surface--ground level! [He does not pierce the earth and go deeper towards the earth, but if he falls into a deep deep hole, he WILL---till reaching the core center! After that, he WON'T go on to the other side of the earth , because the gravitational force is towards the CENTER!

Talking about the rotation of the earth NOT causing him to fall off , (Like a centrifugal force), it is the same gravitational force which keeps us safe from flying off the earth's circumference!!

You can demonstrate this to your child, using a simple magnet held inside (Use your ingenuity how to hold it there!) a balloon or a transparent rubber ball. Use small iron objects like keys, clips, etc placed on the balloon's surface to show the attractive force.

Answer 4

hypersphere:
a four-dimensional sphere, and the possible shape of our universe.


No matter how far the subject travels (by boat, train, or plane), he will never come to a boundary: there is no "edge" to fall off of!! It is because the earth exists on the surface of a sphere that these properties hold true.


.................also....


Gravity
There is one important question which we have avoided discussing until now. Why do objects fall towards the surface of the Earth? The ancient Greeks had a very simple answer to this question. According to Aristotle, all objects have a natural tendency to fall towards the centre of the Universe. Since the centre of the Earth coincides with the centre of the Universe, all objects also tend to fall towards the Earth's surface. So, an ancient Greek might ask, why do the planets not fall towards the Earth? Well, according to Aristotle, the planets are embedded in crystal spheres which rotate with them whilst holding them in place in the firmament. Unfortunately, Ptolemy seriously undermined this explanation by shifting the Earth slightly from the centre of the Universe. However, the coup de grace was delivered by Copernicus, who converted the Earth into just another planet orbiting the Sun.

So, why do objects fall towards the surface of the Earth? The first person, after Aristotle, to seriously consider this question was Sir Isaac Newton. Since the Earth is not located in a special place in the Universe, Newton reasoned, objects must be attracted toward the Earth itself. Moreover, since the Earth is just another planet, objects must be attracted towards other planets as well. In fact, all objects must exert a force of attraction on all other objects in the Universe. What intrinsic property of objects causes them to exert this attractive force--which Newton termed gravity--on other objects? Newton decided that the crucial property was mass. After much thought, he was eventually able to formulate his famous law of universal gravitation:

Every particle in the Universe attracts every other particle with a force directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. The direction of the force is along the line joining the particles.

Answer 5

The earth is not round; it is an oblate spheroid. What edge? If you mean slip off as in slipping off a ball, the answer is because gravity pulls us toward the center of the earth.

Answer 6

the earth has gratational pull even though it is round the gravitational pull acts towards the center of the earth thats why the man on the edge do not falls since the earths gravity acts towards the center.

Answer 7

The earth is moving so slow in its rotation that we cannot really be personally effected by it, and gravity is pulled towards the earths core so its not really pulling down its more pulling towards the center of the planet.

Answer 8

ah... picture your average ball with a strong magnet inside it. now try placing thumtacks, paperclips, or anything small and metallic around the ball. they stick and don't fall off. similar to the earth and other planets. the ball's magnet is like the earth's gravity and we are pulled unto the earth's surface like paperclips to the magnetic ball. :) in a regular ball, however, objects do fall off because there's gravity outside the ball; while out there in space, there's zero gravity. :)

Answer 9

U r confusing urself. 1) ball doesn't have G-force so the object on it falls when u rotate it.
Earth has g-force thats why we dont see each other floating in midair. So g-force prevents us from falling down while earth rotates.
gottcha???

Answer 10

Look, if the ball is as big as the earth, you are not going to fall from the ball either. tell your son that you are very big for ball, that is why ball cannot balance you, also ball does not have the capability to attract things to itself as earth has, that's why we fall from the ball but not from the earth.

Answer 11

The gravity's pull is great enough to keep people attached. Also, the movement is slow so we aren't thrown off. If movement were faster or the pull was less, we'd all be in space.