Certainly there would be mass destruction...? Shifts in sea currents; massive tsunami's; weather pattern impact; electro-magnetic chaos... What are your thoughts?
2007-03-23 03:46:06 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
Suppose the hand of god that flipped the rotation flipped everything all together to avoid the massive destruction.
Secondary impacts:
The magnetic field would flip. This would screw up human navigation, but most animals that navigate magnetically would be okay. They only sense the direction of the B field with respect to the ground, so they don't really notice a polarity flip.
Time zones would all flip--so California would have to watch Monday night football at midnight. Sun rises in west and sets in east.
The coriolis effect would flip. Storm systems and currents would go opposite the way they do now. This would cause significant climate rearrangement of climates. California would have a warm current coming up from Mexico rather than a cold one coming down from Alaska. The jet stream would go east to west. Toilet bowls, however, would be unaffected, so I think everything would be fine in the end.
2007-03-23 03:55:10 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
If the earth abruptly stopped rotating you could figure that there's be a lot of damage to ecological system from the messed up daylight patterns, but those would be temporary.
The real problem would be the magnetic field. We're not precisely sure how and why we have a magnetic field of the strength we do, but we're fairly sure it's related to the earth's rotation. (Indeed, nearly all magnetic fields are a product of rotation: Rotation of charge in a circular circuit produces a magnetic field.)
So, you could expect the earth's magnetic field would go all kaflooie. The magnetic field's the only thing protecting us from the solar wind, so you could also expect that the solar wind would tear away most of our atmosphere in a few years.
That's probably the worst of it right there.
2007-03-23 04:07:35 · answer #2 · answered by Garrett J 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Ooops Pookielog, I wanted to give you a thumb-up and pushed the wrong button.
As for the question, silly as it is, it all depends on the rate of change of the earth's rotation. If it was slow enough, you could avoid tsunamis and catastrophic shifts. But certain point on earth would see the day lengthen, others would see the day shorten, until the day-night cycle stops alltogether, and then slowly reverses itself. This would cause a great deal of weather modification with half the world becoming frozen, the other half heating up.
2007-03-23 04:18:18 · answer #3 · answered by catarthur 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If it stops instantly we would be propelled at a speed of approx. 1000mph forward in a diagonal direction. So I suggest if this was to happen we all hop in a jet bus and reach a speed of 1000mph opposite the earths rotation. Then we stop instantly ..and ..er that would snap our necks...ok just make sure the Ipod's are fully charged.
2016-03-29 00:56:03 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The magnetic field of earth occurs due to the direction of the spin of our planet. Were our planet to reverse direction of spin, then the poles would change polarity.
http://360.yahoo.com/noddarc "The Magnetic Field of Earth" may be of interest.
2007-03-23 07:15:37 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes, there would be terrible destruction. H.G.Wells had in fact one story on such a scenario (I can't remember more). There may be other authors too who tried this theme.
2007-03-23 03:56:44 · answer #6 · answered by Swamy 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
As long as it made certain that I'd never had to watch 'The Core' again - I'd welcome ANYTHING!!!
2007-03-23 03:49:42 · answer #7 · answered by Sculpher 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋