Let’s say the earth came to a screeching halt. What if the earth stopped spinning? It would hurt, but there was also be some interesting physics going on. Take a look at this video below from tweetsauce.

Why does the earth spin?

The earth spins because of how it was formed. From spinning gases and an accretion disk, it all spun together to make the earth, and it still spins today. It spins because of the initial inertia has never been stopped, simply because there is nothing to stop it. It is interesting to think about what might happen if a  large enough asteroid or comet hit the earth in opposition to its current spin. Never mind that everybody would die or get thrown off, but would that impact cause it to spin the other direction?

Here’s another video talking about how the earth spins. There is a nice demonstration using one of those really cool granite globes. If you’ve ever tried to stop one, you know how hard it is.

Those granite globes come in huge sizes sometimes and can be very, very hard to stop and even harder to push into a new direction. All that mass gives you an idea of how and why the earth is still spinning today.