LorgSkyegon

30th Aug 2018

The Core (2003)

Question: If the core stopped spinning, where would all the kinetic energy that keeps it spinning go? Energy cannot be created or destroyed.

Answer: For one thing, the rotation of the core is almost identical to (if not a bit faster than) the rotation of the rest of the planet; so the core coming to a stop relative to the rest of the planet is physically impossible. Over billions of more years, the Earth's core and mantle may eventually cool off and solidify (as has happened on Mars), but the core will still be rotating at the same velocity as the rest of the planet. By that time, of course, Earth will have also lost its Moon, so there will be no tidal forces between the Earth and Moon, which means the planet will be seismically dead, but the Earth will still be rotating on its axis. For the time being, though, it would literally take a miracle, an act of divine intervention, to overcome the physics of planetary rotation. If the core could somehow be stopped relative to the rest of the planet (which is physically impossible), then the core's energy would quite quickly be dissipated into the Earth's mantle, which would become an unimaginable inferno (much more so than it already is), propagating seismic and super-volcano activity all over the globe by a factor of, say, 10,000 times normal activity. The Earth's crust would be effectively ripped to shreds by super-earthquakes and eruptions within a matter of hours, perhaps even causing the entire globe to disintegrate into space. As mentioned, though, it would require something on the order of a true miracle to precipitate this chain of events.

Charles Austin Miller

Answer: The same place it goes normally: dissipated into the Earth.

LorgSkyegon

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.