Stupid but interesting question

D!ve^Bomb!

OK,, there is a path that surrounds the world,, lets just call it the equater path yeah..

So Person 1 and Person 2 are standing next to each other at point A.. One walks one way(P1), walking against the movement of the earth, ya get me?

the other walks in the opposite direction (P2), in flow with the movement of the earth..

they both have to walk around the world..

they both walk at exactly the same pace and on this particular day there is no wind to hinder them:)

who will get to point A first,

And yes i am REALLY bored!! :cool:

2 Espressi

OK so I guess we're assuming the earth it a featureless 'flat' desert, yeah?
Since the rotation of the earth it constant, neither person has an advantage.
Or am I waay off?

Shrimp

In theory, they should arrive at the same time.

The_B_Man

do u know the answer? if u do, im guessing P2, otherwise simultaneously.

D!ve^Bomb!

2 Espressi wrote:

OK so I guess we're assuming the earth it a featureless 'flat' desert, yeah?
Since the rotation of the earth it constant, neither person has an advantage.
Or am I waay off?

yeah they both walk on flat open ground.. i never even took that into consideration..

but if one walks with the earth, would they not have more ground to make up? it'd be kinda like walkin backwards on a treadmill?

D!ve^Bomb!

I think P1 by the way..

frodi

Same time, if they are moving at the same speed relative to the earth.

simu

newband wrote:

but if one walks with the earth, would they not have more ground to make up? it'd be kinda like walkin backwards on a treadmill?

Nah, if that applied, when you jumped straight up, you'd land on a different spot on the floor from that which you jumped from.

D!ve^Bomb!

well yeah,, but we're talkin about walking around the earth,, it's not as simple as jumping up and down within a second... i think P1 would have a slight advantage and considering the amount of time it would take to walk around the earth that tiny tiny advantage could get considerably bigger?

CuLT

Guess:

The treadmill effect would surely only be relevant in the case where the person was travelling at something even close to the rotational speed of the earth.

At the equator the rotational speed of the earth is about 1038 mph...

That aside, walking around the earth all your movement is in relation to the earth. Think of it this way; theoretically, if you pick up a football, put two insects at the same point and if they were to walk around the "equator" of the ball in opposite directions while you spin the ball, they're going to reach the opposite point at the same time, aren't they?

D!ve^Bomb!

that's a damn good way of explaining it..

JackKelly

anything other than simulatneously, and it would mean that it is quicker to get from galway to dublin ,than dublin to galway-or visa versa.

D!ve^Bomb!

sometimes it is

JackKelly

obviously, but in a closed system.

Flukey

They would get there at the same time. The rotation of the earth has no effect if they are walking on its surface. If they were above it and outside its atmosphere, then there would be some change. It is like when you are walking in a moving vehichle, like a plane or train. As you walk along your own actual speed of walking is not affected by the fact the vehichle is moving. If you were walked 10 metres, you may actually be miles from where you started in relation to the Earth, but still 10 metres from where you were in the vehichle when you began your walk.

It is all down to relativity. You should read about Einstein's theory of relativity and the laws around this. Like the way the speeds of things are effected depending where you are throwing it from. For example if you are standing still and you throw a ball that leaves your hand at 10mph, then it is travelling at 10mph. However if you were on the front of a moving vehichle and throw the ball at the exact same speed, relative to you it will be travelling 10mph but in reality will be moving at the speed of the vehichle you are on plus 10mph. To someone standing on the side of the road watching the ball will be travelling at x+10mph where x is the speed of the vehichle.

It is like if you are in a car travelling at 60mph and a car travelling at 70mph overtakes you, relative to you it is only going 10mph and appears to be pulling away from you at that speed, whereas to someone on the side of the road, it appears to be going 70mph. Equally if you are in one vehichle and there is another beside you going at the exact same speed, it in effect appears not to be moving.

As Monty Python put it in their Galaxy Song:

Just remember that your standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at 900 miles an hour.
It's orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it's reckoned,
The sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
Are moving at a million miles a day,
In the outer spiral arm, at 40,000 miles an hour,
Of a galaxy we call the milky way.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars;
It's a hundred thousand light-years side to side;
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick,
But out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide.
We're thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point,
We go 'round every two hundred million years;
And our galaxy itself is one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe


Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz;
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
12 million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when your feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!

woosaysdan

some people have way too much time on their hands and wheres the atari option? tut tut tut!!! someone slipped up!!! as for an answer id go for option 4 they both got tired and gave up!!!

Capt'n Midnight

If we don't ignore wind resistance then one of the will get some advantage.

If there is no wind resistance then the person walking in the direction of the earths rotation will have a higher speed relative to the sun (our time reference). This means (s)he will of course be younger than the person who went the other way, which means they will have spent less time walking so will have walked a shorter distance so the other person gets there first.

CuLT

if we don't?

...also,

Capt'n Midnight, you've just revolutionized modern travel! Now all we have to do is get superman to fly around the world counter-clockwise and reverse all the evil humanity has committed!

popinfresh

lol capt'n Midnight, but if you take that into consideration then you must also take into consideration how long it takes them to take their journey. As the earth rotates, for half the day, one of them would be walking with (what you said about the sun) to their advantage, the other half of the day would be to their dis-advantage . lol, this is getting complicated.

stoopidkid

u asked it ya saddo!

ai ing

simu wrote:

when you jumped straight up, you'd land on a different spot on the floor from that which you jumped from.

when you jump straight up you do actually land in a different spot. When you are in contact with the earth you are moving the same speed as the earth however as soon as you leave contact with the surface of the earth you will immeadiatly begin to slow down relative to the eath. You do not have to leave the atmosphere.
Imagine that spinning football again. If one of thoses bugs jumped while it was spinning they would fly away but gravity stops us doing that but we still will no longer have the impetus of the earth moving us at that speed.
But anyway if the guys are walking they will never leave contact with the earth (olympic walking ). Now if they were running it would be a different story

simu

ai ing wrote:

when you jump straight up you do actually land in a different spot. When you are in contact with the earth you are moving the same speed as the earth however as soon as you leave contact with the surface of the earth you will immeadiatly begin to slow down relative to the eath. You do not have to leave the atmosphere.

It's the same spot from the point of view of the jumper unless they have some super precise measuring instrument.

pickarooney

simu wrote:

It's the same spot from the point of view of the jumper unless they have some super precise measuring instrument.

So you take a big set of measurements, reduce them down to a tiny set for convenience and then say the difference is negligible because the figures are so small?

CuLT

Don't be silly Simu, he's right, tekkit on the chin!

JackKelly

Who picked P2

own up

simu

All I'm saying is that the difference is so tiny as to be negligible.

The P2 vote was probably a protest vote at there being no Atari Jaguar option tbh.

Lump

both will arrive at the same time.... didn't some physics dude have a theorey about this... Newton or some dude. That an external force acting on a body will cause a change in momentum... I haven't done physics in years.... In simple lanuage that unless an external force acts on the person then the momentum of both bodies will be the same...


John

P.S. I'm right, I really do know what I'm on about :P

billy the squid

both people would meet at exactly the same time on the international date line if they were to start at the grenwich meridian.

NotMe

newband wrote:

TimAy wrote:

anything other than simulatneously, and it would mean that it is quicker to get from galway to dublin ,than dublin to galway-or visa versa.

sometimes it is

ha ha ha this cracked me up

They'd both get there at the same time. If they were flying though P1 would get there first.

Bard

Surely both would get there at the same time but one would "technically" be there two days before the other due to him having gone a day backwards, crossing the date line, and the other having gone a day forwards crossing it going the other way?

...

My head hurts.

Canis Lupus

They arrive at the same time assuming the distance they will walk is the same and the ground they walk on is flat also given that both of em walk at the same pace constantly there is no other way for it work out. The rotation of the earth would have no effect given that it doesn't give an advantage one way or the other.

simu

NotMe wrote:

ha ha ha this cracked me up

He was probably thinking of the special Bus Éireann theory of relativity that explains how the buses never mange to get places on time.

Flukey

Oh come on now, no one could work the theory of relativity in relation to any buses. That is beyond human comprehension.

steveland?

When's the last time you've walked faster when you were walking in the direction the Earth was rotating? It doesn't happen like that.

Your feet wouldn't leave the Earths surface far enough for gravity to NOT cancel out the effects of the Earths rotation. The only time it'd really make a difference would be if you were jumping around the Earth and even in that case you'd have to be jumping half a mile or so (this figure is a guess) in the air each time* so that by the time you get back down to the Earths surface the Earth would have rotated from under you.

In that case the person going against the Earths rotation would get their first as when he jumped the Earth would rotate from under him and he'd cover more ground and the other guy would keep losing ground.

So if they're just walking I'd say they'd get their simultaneously NOT taking into account the fact that the Earth isn't a perfect sphere.

* Or as someone said, if they were flying

Flukey

The atmosphere in a location moves with it as the earth rotates. That is why our weather stays with us, or why a helicopter can't just hover in the air for a few hours and wait for the earth to rotate and then land in a completely different place. If it did work that way a plane could take off and fly around in circles above the ground and get to the other side of the planet in 12 hours as it would have rotated to that point below them.

Mossy Monk

surely they would be the same point unless one was fitter than the other

Mercury_Tilt

This post has been deleted.

Capt'n Midnight

billy the squid wrote:

both people would meet at exactly the same time on the international date line if they were to start at the grenwich meridian.

Each of them would be on different sides of the line, in different time zones, - different days.

simu

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Each of them would be on different sides of the line, in different time zones, - different days.

But if they had both been given stopwatches that started counting the secind they set off, the amount of time measured by both watches from then until reaching the finish line would be the same.

steveland?

merc wrote:

hmmm not sure about that. I think you have to walk/jump/fly faster than the earths actual rotation for there to be a difference.

I see your point here but I don't think speed would make a difference if they were going the same speed proportionally to each other.

They'd have to be jumping or flying high enough to leave the atmosphere as Flukey pointed out