LOL

[3dilettante]

Perhaps if we all started running east, we could speed the earth up?

Actually, wouldn't that make the planet slow down, since by moving east people would be pushing the planet in the opposite direction?

I think everything that moves has the potential to alter how the planet rotates in an infinitesimal way.

Then there's the contention that thanks to the building of large reservoirs behind dams, that humanity already has sped up the earth's rotation ever so slightly.

 

[RussSchultz]

Perhaps if we all started running east, we could speed the earth up?

Actually, wouldn't that make the planet slow down, since by moving east people would be pushing the planet in the opposite direction?

Oh, quite right.

Anyways, you get the idea.

 

[Andy]

Even if the jumping thing could work, you'd have to make sure that you jumped at the right time, otherwise you could be pushing the earth's orbit inwards and not outwards lol

 

[Mintmaster]

You'd think at least one of these eager jumpers would have pondered the meaning of conservation of momentum.

Hehe, yeah. Or if that's too complex, Newton's third law (same thing, I guess).

For anyone who doesn't get it (obviously not your horv), once you jump and go into the air, the earth is pulling on you and you are simultaneously pulling on the earth. Action/reaction. When it's all said and done, even if you weighed as much as the moon it wouldn't have any net effect, except you might cause an earthquake or something.

I'm surprised that site is trying to claim some scientific basis. But I suppose it's much like perpetual motion machines using angle magnets, or creationists siting the second law of thermo as evidence against evolution. If you write anything, there will be some people who believe it.

 

[drspangle]

mass of Earth = 5.9742 × 10^24 kilograms (according to google)

mass of 1 billion people (assuming 65kg average) = 6.5 x 10^10

Total force = 640 billion newtons. (assuming that they are all jumping the same height and landing at the same time).

Land Surface area of earth = 150,000,000 km2

So assuming an equal distribution of people around earth the force = 4.3 kiloNewtons per kilometer = 4.3 Newtons per meter squared. Of course they would be acting all over the world thus cancelling most of each other out. And assuming that the now quite trivial forces arn`t all absorbed in compression by the material they are standing on.

There are probably some flaws in there (I can`t even remeber the eqn for impulse, but It`s been a while).

Either way not much will happen.