How do I experience Earth's movement?

Question

We are told that Earth is spinning on its axis at 1037 mph— something that we don't usually feel because of the environment that moves with us as well. Is there any experiment with which we can know Earth's movement? Like levitating a helicopter for hours and landing it back down and checking the difference of distance moved? How can we detect Earth's spin? Any convenient answer would be highly appreciated.

Answer 1

How can we detect Earth's spin?

Apparent motion of Sun

You will have observed that the sun reappears every 24 hours. There are two common explanations for this. One of them is that the earth rotates with a period of approximately 24 hours - this is the only explanation supported by the scientific evidence. The main alternative had a rather convoluted way to explain retrograde motion of planets and, after the first observations of phases of Venus, had to be abandoned.

Apparent motion of stars

The simplest method is to look up at the stars at night and observe that their motion is consistent with the Earth rotating once in approximately 24 hours.

^{CCASA4 Anton Yankovyi 2011}

Foucalt pendulum

As CuriousOne commented, the Foucalt pendulum is another demonstration

^{CCASA3 Nbrouard 2007}

A Foucalt pendulum at the north or south pole rotates 360$^\circ$ in a day. Elsewhere it's angular speed is $\omega=360\sin\varphi\ ^\circ/\mathrm{day}$ where $\varphi$ is the pendulum's latitude.

Coriolis effect

By observing large-scale weather patterns, you can detect the Coriolis effect

^{CCASA3 Anders Persson 2005}

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See also

• What made us think that Earth moves around the Sun?
• Phases of Venus
• Finding radius of Earth through observation of Sun's motion

Answer 2

Perhaps the least convenient but the most direct is go to the Moon and observe the Earth.

The (average) length of day as measured by timing stellar transit to stellar transit, sidereal day, differs by 4 minutes from the length of day defined by timing noon on one day to noon on the next day, solar day.

A satellite launched East requires less energy to get into orbit than a satellite launched West.

Changing from an inertial frame to a rotating frame introduces extra terms for acceleration resulting from “fictitious forces”.

The Foucault pendulum is a manifestation of one of these forces and is probably the most convenient direct evidence particularly if you have one set up in a local science museum.

Ignoring other effects there is a variation of the acceleration of free fall when travelling from the Equator to the Poles.

Dropping a stone from a tall building will result in the stone not falling vertically downwards.

An aeroplane flying due North ends up East of its target.