Gravity.

Joined
30 Jun 2008
Messages
16,758
Reaction score
2,300
Location
Suffolk
Country
United Kingdom
Ok, in the hope of having a sensible discussion;

Do you think the earth revolves in a giant magnetic field in space?

or;

Does the earths gravity cause it to rotate?

Just a subject that came up for discussion earlier and the views are so differing amongst a group of friends.
 
Ok, in the hope of having a sensible discussion;
On here???

Do you think the earth revolves in a giant magnetic field in space?
are you mad?

or;

Does the earths gravity cause it to rotate?
why assume that earth rotates? could be that earth is static and everything rotates about it

Just a subject that came up for discussion earlier and the views are so differing amongst a group of friends.
You? Friends? Don't make me laugh :roll:
 
A serious contribution to the thread.

If the sun's magnetic field is so much stronger than the earth's, do we weigh less in the day time than we do at night?
 
Methinks that too much alcohol has been consumed - but to answer the question :-

Maybe the earth is like a great big "dynamo"
Because we produce electricity and there is a magnetic field the result is rotation.
Therefore before Mr Faraday and his friends came along the earth probably didn't rotate.
That's maybe why sailing ships took so long to cross the oceans - simply because they had to sail all the way, rather than them being aided by the earth's rotation causing the water to pass under them.
:D
 
Ok, in the hope of having a sensible discussion;
I've had a sensible discussion with my wife, who is also a friend (have you got either of these?)

Do you think
yes

the earth revolves
yes
in a giant magnetic field
yes
in space?
yes

or;Does the earths gravity cause it to rotate?
It rotates since nothing has stopped it from doing so, although it (like you) is slowing down with age.
 
Some very diverse answers on here, including some very humorous ones. :lol:

I'm no expert in the field, but I understand the earth rotates because it always has done since lots of particles swirling about a central point began to clump together because gravity attracted them to each other. As someone else said, it is slowing down very gradually but, because there is no air resistance in space there is nothing to stop it rotating, although I suppose that gravitational attraction of and to other celestial bodies must have some effect.

So it is not gravity or a magnetic field that causes it to rotate.

On the other hand, gravity influences the earth's orbit of the sun. Again, it has been doing this since it first formed, probably as particles which were attracted to the sun by its gravity but achieved an orbit rather than plummeting directly into the sun. Like its rotation, I suppose the earth's orbit of the sun must be very gradually slowing down. If not, we must have achieved 'perpetual motion' which, I understand, is not possible!

It seems that just about everything in the universe rotates and orbits in these circular motions instead of just being attracted to each other directly and smashing into each other. Why, I don't know...

...unless God made it happen that way!

(Oh no, not again!)
 
Why, I don't know...
You can't have read my link.

You mean this bit?:

"Anyway, the bottom line is that stars like the Sun spin from the original angular momentum that was there in the solar nebula from which it formed. Not only that, all orbital motion of the planets (including the spin) is due to this orginal angular momentum."

My next question would be why was there a spin in the original solar nebula?

God knows!

(Sorry again. I know we've had some very long, yet interesting discussions on that matter!)
 
Back
Top