Is the rotational speed of the Earth the same in the Ecuator as in the center?

Question

For example, will someone standing at the edge of a rotating platform will be moving faster than someone standing right at the center?

Answer 1

You are going much faster at the equator than at the pole. That is, your linear speed is faster. But rotation as usually measured in revolutions per minute (RPM), and that is the same everywhere on Earth.

Answer 2

Angular velocity (w) would be the same. It is a constant w = 2pi radians per day; where 2pi = 360 angular degrees.

I know it's 2pi radians per day because that's the definition of a day...one complete rotation (2pi or 360 deg) of the Earth. And that's one rotation on the equator as well as in the center along Earth's axis of rotation if that center is reasonably solid.

(Note: as the center of Earth may be molten iron and such, there might be slippage of the angular velocity; so the angular velocities between the center and the equator might be different as one answer indicated.)

Tangential velocity would be different. Tangential velocity is v = wr; where r is the distance from the axis of spin (center line of the Earth) to the point where velocity is measured. Thus, on the axis of spin r = 0; so v = wr = w0 = 0 tangential velocity. But at the equator, on the tip of the Earth's radius, where r = R, tangential velocity would be V = wR; since R > r, we see that V > v. In general, for a given angular velocity (w), the tangential velocity is proportional to the radius of spin (r).

Be careful...r is the distance between the spin axis and a point where tangential velocity is measured. So, a point on the North Pole, what's the tangential velocity from Earth's spin there? Is it v = 0 or V = wR? Or, perhaps, is it something in between 0 < x < wR?

If you answered v = 0, you are correct. That comes from the fact that r = 0 on either pole because the poles are the extremes of the axis of rotation That is, a point on either pole is on the axis of rotation; so r = 0, there is no distance between the axis and the point measured.

Answer 3

One cannot talk of the rotational speed of the centre of the earth,as it is just a point.

Answer 4

Same rpm, slower speed at the center, theoretically the speed at the exact center is zero.

Answer 5

In revolutions per minute they would be the same.

In Miles per hour outter diameter would move very much faster!

Answer 6

It's difficult to say, because the core is basically liquid and would not be subject to the same physics as the outer shell.

Answer 7

Faster in feet/second, not degrees/second.