So, what would happen if, say, a huge meteor was to strike the Earth a glancing blow with such as force, at such an angle, and in such a direction as to stop the planet spinning without actually destroying it? There would of course be a fair bit of damage and stuff but, ignoring all these side issues, I wonder what would happen to me if I was standing outside my house when the meteor struck. My weight would immediately increase by 0.3% as the gravity-countering effect of centrifugal force disappeared, but most noticeably I would be propelled at an initial speed of 700-900 mph in an easterly direction. Obviously the overall weather conditions and the wind direction would have some influence, but I assume there would be some vertical dimension to my trajectory which might save me from colliding with any earth-bound obstacles (though many of these might also have taken to the air) and perhaps I would survive if I landed in the Narrows of Raasay rather on than the island of Raasay itself, which is about 8 miles away; or would I proceed a further 8 miles to the mainland of Scotland? It's the sort of question that appears on school applied maths papers. Another such question might be "Would it be possible for people to lose weight if millions of them at the same time were to run in a westerly direction in order to speed up the easterly spin of the Earth, thus increasing the centrifugal force, thereby countering the effect of gravity? If so, derive the relationship between the depth of tread on the runners' shoes and their weight loss".
Hoping to miss the "passing place" sign and the island of Raasay, 8 miles away in the distance.
One thing that surprises me is that when people travel to the southern hemisphere, they don't return saying "You won't believe this; when you look at the sun it doesn't move from left to right but from right to left". I would find that quite mind blowing, but no one seems bothered.
Back in the northern hemisphere, as we look southwards towards the sun, we are not only spinning to the left at 700-900 mph, but we are also moving around the right side of the sun at 67,000 mph (or the left side when viewed from the southern hemisphere). Tomorrow, 21st June, will be the summer solstice, when the northern end of the Earth's tilting axis is lined up with and pointing towards the sun. I've often thought it would be nice to see something different on the sun in the different seasons so we would know where we were in space. We could be, for example, be looking at a yellow segment during the summer, a russet-coloured one in autumn, blue in winter, and white in spring. But if it was theoretically possible to paint these colours on the quarters of the sun it would be no use as the sun rotates on it own axis at 4400 mph (6875 kph) (counterclockwise, i.e., left to right, when viewed from our northern hemisphere), so we'd just see the colours going round and eventually mixing because the sun rotates faster at its equator than at its poles. Besides, with a sun photosphere (visible surface) temperature of 5500degC and a coronal temperature of 2 million degC, there would be significant health and safety issues, the need for technological advances in the areas of heat-resistant paint and paint brushes, and the problem of how to manoeuvre paint brushes that are nearly 93 million miles (150 million km) long. Although the brushes wouldn't weigh anything they would have quite a lot of inertia to overcome.
I think the best solution would be to construct around the sun a massive lantern, made from four segments of heat-resistant coloured glass. We would then get different wavelengths of light from the sun at different times of the year, which would be brilliant, especially if this meant different sky colours; blue is cool but tangerine or lilac could be nice for a change. It might, however, be slightly more practical to build a lantern around the Earth and this concept could prove useful in around 1. 8 billion years time when, some currently estimate, the Earth might begin to become uninhabitable, certainly for humans, as the sun, growing steadily in luminosity, starts to strip away water and atmosphere from the planet. It is, of course, speculated that the human race will be extinct well before this, so no worries.
