okay,Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
A little more on this, though it's off-topic. Some might find it very interesting.Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
Yes. It's what's called an 'inertial frame of reference'.Posted by Hervé (here)
To keep it simple and with that same terminology: that's because the chopper indeed does "float" in an atmosphere that's also "entrained" to follow earth 1000mph spin... hope that makes enough sense?Posted by Mike (here)
I[...]
... I honestly still can't quite understand how a floating chopper can land on an earth that is supposed to be spinning at 1000 mph....
[...]
What that means is that everything's traveling at the same speed — the earth, the air, the helicopter, everything.
So landing the helicopter on the ground is as easy as dropping a tennis ball from one hand into the other when you're in a plane traveling at 500 mph.
The air's not moving relative to anything else, so it doesn't matter whether the plane is on the runway, or is an interstellar spacecraft traveling at half the speed of light. INSIDE the plane, it's all the same.
Supposing your interstellar spacecraft, traveling at half the speed of light, had headlights? Or a window at the front, where you could shine a spotlight?
How fast would the light beam be going, once it was outside the spacecraft?
That's not a simple question. In fact, it seems to be a paradox, because the speed of light is a constant, no matter where it's measured from.
Think about that for a moment. It's a real pretzel of a brain-twister.
Solving that riddle is what led Einstein to the Special Theory of Relativity.
initially i would say that if one was travelling at the speed of light, with the old high beam on,
then it would be the speed of light, plus the speed of travel.
however, as one is already travelling at the speed of light
ones headlights would also be travelling at light speed
so that when you switch them on, the light would ONLY be travelling at light speed
which suggest's to my recently fried brain, that the speed of light is relative, and possibly subjective.
that said, what if a neutral , stationary observer were to observe an object travelling at light speed, with its headlights on?
BTW i love the way you ended that post with a 'back to topic' emoji!