but it's enough that the bottom 50,000 km of your fire station pole would be squished against the Earth once a month. A somewhat more obscure piece of trivia is that the point on the Earth's surface farthest from its center is the summit of Mt. The Earth's surface spins faster than the Moon goes around, so the end that dangled down to the Earth would break off if you tried to connect it to the ground: There's one more problem:[2]Ok, that's a lie—there are, like, hundreds more problems. from $19.00 Woodpecker. World-record pole climbers[4]Of course there's a world record for pole climbing. A few of my favorites: * What happens when a Baseball is pitched at 90% of the speed of light? There's this recurring theme in xkcd of the possibility and choice to pursue the unknown, with other such comics including 59, 137, 267, and 706. Should we have a category for it? Alternatively, find out what’s trending across all of Reddit on r/popular. Let's buy a little time by trying to figure it out anyway. You can read a brief introduction about this wiki at explain xkcd.Feel free to sign up for an account and contribute to the wiki! Even if you climb at better-than-world-record speed, it will still take you several years to get to the L1 crossover point. That's how fast the top end of our hypothetical fire pole will be traveling. Even though the end of the pole is moving slowly relative to the Earth as a whole, it's moving very fast relative to the surface. In his new book, What If? : Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions would eventually be released in September that year. Unfortunately, in this case, it's probably going to be both. Asking how fast the pole is moving relative to the surface is effectively the same as asking what the "ground speed" of the Moon is. How far into the periodic table could you get? Cayambe's southern slope also happens to be the highest point on Earth's surface directly on the Equator. Then, as the air carries you away and you fall toward the Earth, you can open your parachute. He likes candlelight dinners and long walks on the beach. Cayambe, a volcano north of Chimborazo. Even if an object is moving slowly when it's drifting through space, when it gets close to the Earth it gets accelerated up to at least escape velocity by that final segment of the trip down into the Earth's gravity well. from the swinging pole pulling you away from Earth. When the Moon's tilt is in the same direction as the Earth's, it stays 5° closer to the Equator than the Sun, and when it's in the opposite direction, it reaches more extreme latitudes. Top posts february 10th 2016 Top posts of february, 2016 Top posts 2016. In general, the fact that the Earth spins is very fortunate for you, and for the planet's overall habitability. First, let's get a few things out of the way: In real life, we can't put a metal pole between the Earth and the Moon. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License. [[A large black circle with white bubbles inside it, filled with hearts, question marks, and stick figure couples]] And now you know.​[13]Mt. This means you're free to copy and share these comics (but not to sell them). It's not a big difference,[3]You may occasionally see people get excited about the "supermoon," a full Moon that appears slightly larger because it happens at the time of the month when the Moon is closest to Earth. A serious scientific answer to an absurd hypothetical, and the first chapter of Randall Munroe's upcoming book. Ok, that's a lie—there are, like, hundreds more problems. [12]It's common knowledge that Mt. This is why anything that falls into the Earth hits the atmosphere fast enough to burn up. How long would it take to slide down from the Moon? In general, the fact that the Earth spins is very fortunate for you, and for the planet's overall habitability. |<