If the earth stopped spinning would we fall off of it? Which way would we fall if we did? Or would there just be less gravity?
(Don’t know what centrifugal force is? Go ask your parents. No way they’re palming all their kid’s questions off on me.)
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How much more would you weigh? Well, figuring in your newtons, your velocity, and your gravitational constant . . . about five ounces for a hundred-pound person. At the equator. An effect you could achieve right now if you merely went to the north pole. And which might be canceled out anyway because a stationary earth would cease to flatten at the poles. So maybe not that big a deal.
–David Jenkins, New York City
Cecil, I have asked many people, but nobody knows. How did Bazooka Joe lose his right eye?
Oh, I don’t think so. If one judges from the return addresses, less than 1 percent of my correspondents write from in prison. Of course there is that fellow David English, who sent me a letter a while back exhibiting an unhealthy interest in a book entitled “If We Can Keep a Severed Head Alive.” But he probably writes to Ann Landers too. Besides, give me some credit. I’m keeping Slug Signorino off the streets.
