Dec 31, 2021
The Rotation of the Earth Sucks.
That’s why I have a lot of sympathy for those who deny the fact.
It’s as if the creator of the universe, if there is one, wanted to humiliate the human race (and all life on earth, if it’s possible for it to be humiliated).
It’s awfully depressing and unpleasant to think that we, and all our buildings, statues, roads, furniture, and everything else that we are so proud of does not remain upright in a dignified and comfortable fashion but rather, by necessity and beyond our control, tumbles head over heels, if you are at the Equator, if you are not, whirls (albeit slowly) around at an angle whose value depends on how far from the Equator you are.
Being at the North Pole in the Arctic Ocean, or at the South Pole in Antarctica, makes the situation a little bit better. One merely turns, as if standing on a horizontal turntable. That’s much more dignified, I’m sure you’d agree. And even that turning could be got rid of by, at the North Pole, turning your (icebreaker) ship with respect to the sea the opposite way to the earth’s spin. The ship would be a siderostatic object. Likewise, at the South Pole you could stand on a siderostatic turntable. You’d also need to convince yourself that up was defined as away from the Earth’s center.
Those people in ancient times who refused to believe that the earth turns were wrong, but I feel some sympathy for them. Maybe they didn’t like the idea that they and their cathedrals and palaces and bedrooms and mountain and lakes and oceans were all doing slow somersaults. Maybe they understood the implications a bit better than those who embraced the new theory. No one ever notes how obnoxious a truth it was that the turning-earthers (to coin a term) were promoting.
I find the turning of the earth awful, and I grew up with it. Imagine growing up believing that the earth was still, and then being confronted with an unproven new theory that said the earth rotated once per (sidereal) day.
Likewise, maybe some of the present day flat-earthers are just better aware of how awful it is that the Earth is round, and worse-still, rotating. We all tend to avoid unpleasant truths, and even deny them. If you see how awful the rotation of a round earth is, you can see what a lovely idea a flat, stationary earth is. Everything would be upright and stationary.
Someone said once, “If you can keep your head when all those around you are losing theirs, perhaps you haven’t grasped the situation.”
Someone else said, “Anyone who isn’t appalled by Darwin’s theory of evolution hasn’t understood it.”
I’m tempted to say, “Anyone who isn’t appalled by the rotation of the earth hasn’t understood it.”
