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.....traveling at an average speed of 700 miles per hour can ever get from New York to London when the earth is spinning the same direction, west to east, at 1,000 miles per hour. Wouldn't California catch up to us from behind in about 7 hours?
Just wondering. Math isn't my best subject. Maybe I'm missing something.
Its called relative speed. 700 miles per hour is the plane's speed relative to the earth, relative basically means you're looking at the difference between these two things. The ABSOLUTE speed of the plane is actually 1700 miles per hour because it was already travelling at 1000 when it was sitting in the ground, and added 700 miles per hour when it took off. Absolute speed means the you are looking at basically everything that affects the speed of the plane (earth rotating, earth revolving around the sun etc. all add speed to the plane)
long story short the plane was already moving at the same speed as the earth and just added more speed when it took off. Its like if you ever jumped in an elevator at the last second when its going up, and jumped really high, that's because the elevator speed was added to your jump
Why doesn't the wind blow at 1000 mph, since that's the velocity of the earth's rotation? It's because the atmosphere gets dragged around with the rest of the planet, fortunately.
Last year, I left Minsk, Belarus at 5:00 AM on Tuesday morning and flew to Frankfurt, Germany where I had a short layover and then caught another plane to San Francisco. My sister picked me up and we drove home to Central California. I arrived home at 7:30 PM on that same Tuesday. It was the longest Tuesday of my life because I was travelling with the sun.
I agree about the wind blowing that fast. I thought of that after I asked my question. Thanks!
My question was motivated by a friend who believes in the flat earth theory, and I'm just trying to fit some of the puzzle pieces together. Obviously that piece doesn't fit at all!