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https://xkcd.com/2882/

Alt text:

For decades I've been working off the accumulated rotation from one long afternoon on a merry-go-round when I was eight.

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[-] Aceticon@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

The mass of the Earth is 5.972 × 10^24^, so you would need 5.972 × 10^20^ humans of 100 Kg each all turning in the same direction to make the Earth rotate 1% the other way (so about 597,200,000 trillion humans).

PS: I might be slightly wrong here as rotations have to do with angular momentum which is a bit more complicated than the linear kind because rotational inertia doesn't depende on mass alone, but the law of conservation of angular momentum does apply.

this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
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