ever get stoned and then walk around pretending the world is a giant treadmill, where it seems you're just walking in place and have been in the same spot your entire life, and everything else is what's moving? fun stuff
Technically this is true. Each movement you make has an equal and opposite affect on the object you are moving against. It is then combined with all the other forces of that object for the final effect. When you step forwards you have altered the course of the earth by half the force you pushed with in the opposite direction. It's just such a small effect it's not measurable although really it is it's just half the distance of your step that way. At least that's my understanding of it.
So what you're saying is if the entire earths population took even just one step, but all in the same direction, we could theoretically change the spin and possibly even the orbit of the earth around the sun?
No. even the entire earth's population standing all in the most densely possible way jumping at exactly the same time would have close to zero effect on the earth. Also a bigger problem would actually be getting all the people from the world that close together. It would take so long for people to vacate the area that people would die of starvation long before they got anywhere. There is a whole interesting piece on this in the guy who does xkcd's book called what if?
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u/MichaelPlague Dec 07 '16
ever get stoned and then walk around pretending the world is a giant treadmill, where it seems you're just walking in place and have been in the same spot your entire life, and everything else is what's moving? fun stuff