Sept 5, 2014. ********** SOLUTION TO THE PHYSICS QUIZ ********* The orbital angular momentum is m*v*R. Here m is the mass of the Earth 6.0*10^(24) kg. R the mean distance to the sun (150*10^9 m) and v the speed of the Earth in orbit (30*10^3 m/sec). That leads to an orbital angular momentum of 2.7*10^40 SI units. The spin angular momentum of the Earth is I*w. Here I is the moment of inertia if the Earth and w the angular frequency of rotation. I=(2/5)m*r^2. Here r is the radius of the earth (6.4*10^6 m). w=2*pi/T, here T=86,400 sec (24 hr). That leads to 7.1*10^33 SI units. Thus the ratio is 3.8*10^6. The orbital angular momentum of the Earth is almost 4 million times larger than the spin angular momentum of the Earth. The total angular momentum of our solar system is to a high degree of accuracy entirely in the orbits of the planets.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 16:16:11 +0000
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