If all the people in the world started running to the East side of the Earth; would the Earth's rotational speed change? ?

yes but only very very slightly. probably immeasurably and definitely swamped by the moons influence.

And the change would stop when the people did.

 

I ran the numbers for this a while back — the rotation change is something like a part in 10^15. What you need is for all these people to get into a car and drive fast — increasing the mass by a factor of 10 or so and the speed by a factor of 100. I think that's on the edge of what you might be able to measure with atomic clocks and VLBI rotation measurements.

If all the people in the world started running to the East side of the Earth; would the Earth's rotational speed change? ?

 

It already changes when one ant walks in any direction.

p.s. don't tell this to the ants. We'd better keep them ignorant.

It already changes when one ant walks in any direction.

p.s. don't tell this to the ants. We'd better keep them ignorant.

The good thing, though, is that when one ant walks in one direction, another ant, somewhere, walks in the opposite. Thank, god for that.

And the change would stop when the people did.

 

I ran the numbers for this a while back — the rotation change is something like a part in 10^15. What you need is for all these people to get into a car and drive fast — increasing the mass by a factor of 10 or so and the speed by a factor of 100. I think that's on the edge of what you might be able to measure with atomic clocks and VLBI rotation measurements.

 

The trick is to have everone run to the nearest pole, North or South.

Then, they can stop and admire their work.

I wanna see those piles of humanity.