Answer to Question #90991 in Mechanics | Relativity for Murari

Question

Since Earth is spinning, why do we land in the same place when we jump or fall?
This question has ans on many sites but i feel confused by those ans because they say 2 things
That we move along with earth in air too
But about air resistance and how air moves along earth
So pls explain the above quest in a much easy manner with considering air resistance

Answer 1

We are talking about moving up or down vertically. There is no strictly vertical movement in nature. The human movement lasts for a short period of time (a few seconds). Earth rotates at 360° for 24 hours.

For 1 second the Earth rotates on

$$\frac { 360° 1 s} {24 3600 s}=\frac { 1° } {240} (1)$$

At height h the person for 1 s moves in a horizontal direction on distance l

$$l = \frac { 2 \pi h } {360× 240} (2)$$

We put h=1 m in (2):

l=7.27×10^-5 m

It's a fairly small amount.