Assume you can Speed up the Earth’s rotation so that only half of the day? what happens? Well, for beginners we have to make a new clock, and the new clock is only 1 to 6 hours of AM and PM. If you have tickets to the 8 o’clock concert, you will be unfortunately: 8 o’clock no longer exists.
But perhaps a more cryptic question is, why are physicists asking such crazy questions? It never happens – just keep going, right? OK, this is the deal. Thinking about counterfactual scenarios gives us a deep understanding of how things work in reality. Plus, this is very interesting! Do I need to say more? OK, it even helps us build an elevator for a workspace.
Oh, you don’t know what a space elevator is? This is a science fiction staple, bound by orbital space stations from Earth to Earth-synchronous orbit. Just like a regular elevator, a climbing car will ride up and down. Basically, it’s a way to get to space as easily and routinely as you ride an elevator to the office in the morning – no rockets are needed.
Let’s start with some basic problems and build some more complex physics.
What is a day?
You can’t get more basics than this. But the answer is not simple. If you say that a day is 24 hours, you are right – wrong. If you stand outside, the time when the sun is at its highest point in the sky is called local noon. If you stand there until the next midday, the amount of time elapsed is defined as 24 hours. So one hour is 1/24th of the time between two local lunches.
But wait! This is different from the complete revolution of the earth. If you measure the time of a complete revolution, you will find no It’s exactly 24 hours. The reason is that the earth does two things immediately: it rotates on the axis, which causes the sun to appear to move in the sky. But this also orbits the sun over a year, meaning that a complete rotation does not result in the sun being in the same position in the sky.
There are actually two different types of days. this Sun Day It is the one you are considering, and it is also described above. Another type is called Star Day. Here is a completely unlimited chart that can help you understand the differences:
