We just watched the Futurama episodes where alien cats stopped the Earth’s rotation, and they fixed it by making it rotate in the opposite direction.
I don’t really know but based on the answers here this is the disaster movie I need next
The toilet will flush the opposite way
If it happened suddenly, there would be massive tidal waves on western coasts.
The sun would rise in the west and set in the east. Timezones would be backward. People in different areas would have oddly desynchronized sunlight exposure relative to the time on their clocks. For example, if this happened at sunset for you, the sun would rise first from the east and set in the west, then rise again from the west and set in the east. You’d be halfway through a double day at the moment of switching. Other people would have a double night.
Need more info. Does the earth immediately stop spinning and start spinning in the opposite direction? Or does it gradually stop over an arbitrary amount of time and reverse directions? Haven’t seen the episode…
In the episode it had stopped for a while first, then they slowly spun it up.
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Nothing if it does a flip first.
It changes the way stars appear to move for us. Astrology teachings would have to do a full 360 degree turn to retain their accuracy.
Full 360 degree turn, eh?
This comment gave me the motivation to turn my life around and do a full 360.
:)
Sundials will be useless
Nah just send each to the other hemisphere.
Wait, I need an animated diagram
Time goes backwards and I get to eat that cake I had last week?
You had it last week it has to back in first
*shlorp*
Imagine reversing every bathroom break you’ve had in your life. “Hang on I gotta run to the restroom and conjure up a poop from the sewer”
Imagine people casually walking into the restroom and then coming back out and running away in a sweaty panic with diarrhea
A week is too long. Before you can eat it again backwards, you have to push it up your rear end…
Good news, everyone!
Let’s entertain a thought experiment here.
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The earth suddenly reverses rotation. Basically the entire surface of the earth is subjected to a massive reversal of force. The tidal waves would wash over most of the land we have everything would be wrenched asunder the crust of the earth would tear spilling magma into barren oceans.
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The earth slows down stops then starts spinning again. Gravity would become weaker and weaker one side of the earth would be perpetual night and the other side perpetual day the atmosphere would dissipate into space along with anything loose on the surface which includes all the water we have all life would perish. Slowly, as the earth starts to spin again gravity might pull some of its materials back down but hardly enough to make a difference. The earth would be a barren wasteland.
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The earth suddenly stops spinning. Everything on the surface of the earth including all its water and the atmosphere would be violently flung into outer space. All life would perish as our human corpses hurled at extreme speeds through our solar system.
😃
The earth slows down stops then starts spinning again. Gravity would become weaker and weaker one side of the earth would be perpetual night and the other side perpetual day the atmosphere would dissipate into space along with anything loose on the surface which includes all the water we have all life would perish. Slowly, as the earth starts to spin again gravity might pull some of its materials back down but hardly enough to make a difference. The earth would be a barren wasteland.
Why would gravity become weaker and things float off into space? Gravity has nothing to do with the earth spinning. It’s a property of mass. The mass of the earth wouldn’t change because it stops spinning.
Tides would stop. One side would heat up, the other side would cool down. The diurnal cycle of animals and plants would cause havoc, but the planet itself wouldn’t have a huge issue. Everything on it, yes, but that’s because the ecosystem is built around the flow around the planet, not because of the physical motion.
The planet has been slowly slowing down for millennia and will eventually stop.
So you’re absolutely right. Full disclosure I have been sick the last week and on prescribed narcotic medication and in my opioid muddled mind a massive body needed to rotate to produce gravity.
It sounded cool in my head.
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Lois Lane would come back to life
Lois Lane would be resurrected and unburied by rocks if there had been an earthquake caused by a nuclear strike shortly before this happened.
Didn’t they make a documentary about this?
We should assume that has happened.
yna eb t’now erehT
Randall Munroe made an xkcd about this. It’s not on his website unfortunately, but someone else uploaded it. I would recommend using a adblocker though.
But OP asked a different question. Not what happens when earth stops spinning but what happens when earth spins in the other direction.
The answer is largely the same if you make the same assumptions though, just roughly twice as bad because not only does the earth stop and everything not attached goes yeet, but everything attached starts moving just as fast as you in the opposite direction
Everybody would fall over.
Only a change in rotational speed would be bad. If earth were to rotate in the opposite direction since the beginning it would behave just like today.
That was my thought. The only major change I could see happening (besides the cataclysmic events from the change) is the direction of sunrise/sunset.
Exactly
Proof: define Antarctica as North. Now earth is rotating in the other direction.
