It is sometimes said that if the entire population of China stood on chairs and jumped off simultaneously, it would alter the rotation of the Earth. Fortunately, physics gives us the tools to investigate such speculations.
a) Calculate the moment of inertia of the Earth about its axis. For simplicity, treat the Earth as a uniform sphere of mass mE = 5.977·1024 kg and radius 6371 km.
b) Calculate an upper limit for the contribution by the population of China to the Earths moment of inertia, by assuming that the whole group is at the Equator. Take the population of China to be 1.3 billion people, of average mass 70. kg.
c) Calculate the change in the contribution in part (b) associated with a 1.0-m simultaneous change in the radial position of the entire group.
d) Determine the fractional change in the length of the day the change in part (c) would produce.
We need at least 10 more requests to produce the solution.
0 / 10 have requested this problem solution
The more requests, the faster the answer.