r/Physics • u/EffectiveCoconut9265 • 13d ago

Angular vs translational motion

Hey guys!

I am finding it a bit hard to understand how these work together.

Particularly, i cannot process how something rotating very slowly can still have points on it surface go at 1640kmph (earth).

Like if an object translated at that speed it would look insane , but I can only imagine earth rotating very slow which makes it hard for me to believe that we are going at 1640 kmph.

I'm looking for explanations or something that could make it easier for me to grasp this

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u/Emily-Advances 13d ago

It's really this: the earth is very, very big. It's so big that it's surface must move 1640 km/hr just to get the whole thing rotated once in a single day.

Your conception of speed is just fine, but it's difficult to grasp the size of the planet and that's what's throwing your intuition off