What if you somehow go up straight into sky (assuming that you go up without any displacement in any other direction), would you land on the same spot from where you went up? If not, where could you land up depending upon the time you stay up?
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3Search term: "Coriolis force." – rob Jul 21 '22 at 15:41
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2We've had helicopters, balloons, canons and rockets for quite a long time now, so this would seem pretty easy to work out yourself. – StephenG - Help Ukraine Jul 21 '22 at 15:53
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1I assume this is someone interested in learning some basic physics ideas and who posted here because he/she couldn't work it out, so why the dismissive comments? – Not_Einstein Jul 21 '22 at 16:32
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2@Not_Einstein I didn't intend to sound dismissive. The Coriolis pseudo-force has an interesting and non-trivial effect on a trajectory which is vertical relative to its launch point. – rob Jul 21 '22 at 16:44
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1Possible duplicates: https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/80090/2451 and links therein. – Qmechanic Jul 21 '22 at 17:57
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@rob , i will surely check that out, seems interesting – Nocturple Coolroom Jul 22 '22 at 15:47
1 Answers
assuming that you go up without any displacement in any other direction
Relative to what? If you go straight up and down without any displacement relative to the ground, you'll hit exactly where you started. If you mean relative to the air, then where you land will depend on the local wind patterns.
If you're imagining that you can just go straight up and the earth will spin under you, you should keep in mind that when you are on the surface of the earth you are spinning at the same speed as the earth. However much force you apply in a vertical direction, you keep that angular momentum and generally spin at a similar rate to the earth.
You might say "what if we get rid of that angular momentum somehow?" Well certainly you could- you just need to apply enough thrust in the right direction, parallel to the surface of the earth. But you wouldn't usually call that "going straight up and down."
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Oh, well this one sounds convincing. I have always thought that if we consider earth as a system, thats moving in this space ,we could probably land at some other place. – Nocturple Coolroom Jul 22 '22 at 15:51