Sun stood still (Earth stopped rotating)
Joshua 10:12Then Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, "O sun, stand still at Gibeon, And O moon in the valley of Aijalon." 13So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, Until the nation avenged themselves of their enemies. Is it not written in the book of Jashar? And the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. 14There was no day like that before it or after it, when the LORD listened to the voice of a man; for the LORD fought for Israel.
Here, in layman's language, is an idea of what would happen if the Earth stopped rotating.
When the Earth began rotating again the reverse would happen . . .There are two things to keep in mind:
1. An object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force.
2. Everything that is on the surface of the Earth is also spinning with the Earth, which is why we experience day and night.
At the moment of sudden stop, every object that was not firmly anchored to the Earth would continue traveling in the direction it was moving -- tangential to the Earth's surface. The degree of "lurch" would depend greatly on your line of latitude -- which reflects your distance from the axis of spin. At the North and South Pole a small piece of earth has 24 hours to move in a full circle around the axis, which is feet to fractions-of-an-inch per hour (i.e. pretty darn slow). At the equator -- the farthest distance from the axis -- the surface of the Earth is moving at 1670 kilometers/hour (1070 miles/hr).
In other words: at the moment of sudden stop everyone standing at the equator would suddenly find themselves travelling at 1.4 times the speed of sound relative to the now-still surface...at least until they hit something.
And then the real fun starts.
Amongst the things that would still be moving (per Newton's first law of motion) is the atmosphere. Anyone who survived flying sideways at 1000+ miles per hour would quickly realize that they were experiencing the worst wind storm ever imaginable. For context, a category five hurricane has winds of over 249km/h (155 miles/h). Just like the people who went flying, the speed of the air is now 1000+ miles per hour relative to the now-stopped surface. Anything that didn't already go zooming to one side would be getting smashed by crushing wind force...and probably then go flying.
And then there's the fact that about 70% of the Earth's surface is water -- which is also not anchored. The shift in momentum would yield enormous tsunamis, which would probably be even worse due to the aforementioned raging windstorm.
There's yet one more liquid we'd have to be concerned with: all of the magma constantly moving through the Earth's mantle and core. I'm not sure whether the magma stops moving suddenly with the solid earth or it stays moving -- but assuming it's still moving*, that would most likely lead to volcanic eruptions through every channel possible to the surface...and there would be earthquakes that go with that.
https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen ... rotating-1
Still believe ancient tales about the Earth ceasing rotation? What sort of mental gymnastics and/or willful ignorance of physics and astronomy does it take to keep believing tales by ancients who thought the Sun revolved around the Earth?
Would it not be more rational to understand that the tale is a TALL TALE -- a religious fantasy?
"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this." -- Albert Einstein -- Written in 1954 to Jewish philosopher Erik Gutkind.
