• Question: why does the earth spin in circular motions? why not in hexagonal motions?@theo

    Asked by Amburger15 to Alex, Ali, Kerry, Philip, Theo on 13 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Theo Laftsoglou

      Theo Laftsoglou answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      Hey, this is a great question! The answer is given by understanding the physics of it and the first person to understand this was Albert Einstein where he discovered that space and time are not two different things but one combined. But you can imagine our sun as a big heavy object in the middle, like a heavy ball in a trampoline. What does it happen when you place a heavy ball on a trampoline? it bends it right? our planet is a lighter ball that’s around the bend / troph and because the troth is circular it goes around in a circular motion.

    • Photo: Philip Ratcliffe

      Philip Ratcliffe answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      Or heptagonal or pentagonal (no, that’s too satanic, which makes one wonder why the Americans chose that shape for their Department of Defense headquarters – ask Freud)?
      Well, let’s think about why a planet moves around the Sun at all. Just as Newton realised, a body in motion would carry on in a straight line forever if no forces acted on it. So a planet would like to go in a straight line, but the Sun gives it a little tug “come here” (gravitational attraction) and it actually does this continually (it certainly doesn’t give six tugs every orbit – the Sun can’t count and again why six, not seven or five or …?). Since the pull is continuous, the change of direction is continuous or a curve, which, incidentally, is not a circle but an ellipse (or oval, a slightly squashed circle).

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