If people are at the bottom of earth(south pole)why don't they fall off of earth?

Question

It's just soooo confusing.We don't understand it that we the earth is flat with mountains but from the space we're a sphere.its just like soooo confusing

Answer 1

Gravity is holding us down

Answer 2

The water that you see on the globe, if liquid, would fall to the floor. The world as a whole has a center of mass where everything is continuously falling to the center with a surface to keep it up. That's why you have weight, because your body and floor is keeping you upright. In fact, it's really hard to escape the earth's gravity from anywhere. Lastly, there is no top or bottom. It's just a tilted sphere with two magnetic poles spinning around the gravity of the sun.

Answer 3

There is no "bottom" of the earth -- nor is there a top. We have arbitrarily defined North and South, top and bottom, lines of longitude and latitude in order to map our planet in an orderly way -- but they have no real meaning. Our planet is a sphere (which bulges slightly at the equator), and gravity pulls everything on the surface towards the middle of the planet. Doesn't matter where you are on the planet, you're pulled towards the middle. If you somehow rotated the earth's axis 67 degrees so that our axis pointed right at the sun and the earth was "sideways" compared to what it is now, nobody would fall off and gravity wouldn't be any different -- we'd all still be pulled towards the center.

Go to the seashore sometime, and look out towards the open ocean -- you can easily see the curvature of the earth. That might help your brain grasp the "spherical" nature of our home. :)

Answer 4

The south pole is NOT the bottom of the Earth. It is just a map making convention to put south at the bottom of a map. You could just as easily mount your globe so that the south pole was at the top and the north pole was at the bottom. There is no giant table in space with the Earth sitting on it. On the real Earth, down is toward the center of the globe. Gravity pulls everything toward the center of the Earth, not toward the south!

Answer 5

This is a question that I had many many years ago.....

However you question is not immediately silly : try to reply to this simple question: towards what people at south pole should fall ???

At North pole there is nothing but the Earth. At South pole it is the same situation...... People, and any other material object 'sees''
only the center of the Earh. Anyting is attracted towards the center of the Earth,. There are no preferential points on the surface of the Earth.....

Does this explanation seem sufficient ??

Answer 6

In simple terms gravity...in more complete terms the attraction between two masses (an object and the earth) IE gravitational force / weight = (gravitational constant*mass of object on top of earth*mass of earth)/(earth's radius)^2. Change the mass of earth to the mass of another planet to get the object's weight on another planet. :-P

THE ONLY WAY TO FORCE PEOPLE TO FAR OFF THE EARTH IS TO HAVE AN OBJECT OF GREATER MASS NEARBY TO PRODUCE A STRONGER GRAVITATIONAL FORCE THAN THE EARTH....this would, in effect, suck them off the planet. The moon, while not nearly massive enough to do this, does cause water to lift up in the form of waves in the ocean, just to give you an idea.

If you look down at earth you can't see the mountains as the extent they protrude/stick-out is TINY compared to the curving nature of the land around them (they are, quite simply, tiny bumps on a sphere, like pieces of dust on a NERF ball).

Answer 7

Just like a basket ball ,and u are that ant crawling on it. The spinning of the earth has nothing to do with gravity . If u have 2 space craft in space near each other they will attract each other.

Answer 8

Gravity always pulls towards the center of the earth. We're upside down compared to the southern hemisphere.

Answer 9

GRAVITATIONAL force holds us own on the earths surfce.

We or infct u will fall only if u travel or jump with the velocity sme as tht of a rocket or space shuttle.

Answer 10

The rotation and the movement of earth keep us on hold. Something like I pull you and you pull me while making circle of movement. I think. What will happen to us if the earth stops moving?

Answer 11

lol, haaaaaahaaaahaahahahaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaa,

srry about that, gravity toward the center of the earth, and its the earth thats falling toward us when lloking at a physics stand point