Oleg Zabluda's blog
Sunday, October 21, 2012
 
When I was about 5 years old, I decided to test experimentally if the Earth really turns on its axis, as the...
When I was  about 5 years old, I decided to test experimentally if the Earth really turns on its axis, as the grownups and their books were telling me.

In this I was already way ahead of Copernicus (1473-1543), since he never attempting or proposed anything like that. In fact, people around him weren't stupid, and were telling him (since the ancients) that if the Earth was really turning, the equator would be moving at 40000/(24*3600)=0.5 km/sec, and buildings, trees and people would be flying off everywhere. His only counter was that turning round and round was their "natural motion" and other nonsense like that [1].

The subject was only settled with Galileo (1564-1642) and his original relativity theory (1632), Jean Richer's (1630–1696) pendulum experiments on the equator (1673), explained by Newton's (1642-1727) mechanics and theory of gravity (1687), verified by French Geodesic Mission (1743)
https://plus.google.com/112065430692128821190/posts/ZtNiL5AnQkL

Unconcerned with complexities and technicalities like these, I simply chose a spot behind the playground in the day care (called Kindergarten back in USSR) and put something about an inch underground. Several days later, I went to check on it, couldn't find it, and concluded that rotation of the Earth must have rotated it elsewhere. Theory thus confirmed, my trust in authority was not shaken until much later.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Richer

#sciencesunday  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Richer

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