That Darn Katz
Jody Gaines
Phys 212, F07
4/16/14
Website Project
Bibliography
Source [10]
If the Earth rotated in the opposite
direction, then storms in the northern hemisphere would
rotate clockwise and storms in the southern hemisphere
would rotate counter-clockwise.
Background of Episode
In the Futurama Episode “That Darn Katz,” Graduate student Amy Wong comes up with an idea of using the Earth’s rotation to create energy. While her idea is rejected by Professor Katz (who is actually a puppet controlled by a cat), the cats of Thuban 9 come to planet Earth to harness the rotational energy for themselves. To do this, they enslave the human population by acting cute, which causes the humans to do whatever the cats tell them to do. As a result The Earth stops spinning and the cats’ home planet starts spinning again. On Earth half of the planet is burning from the direct sunlight, and the other half is completely freezing. Amy saves the day by harvesting the spinning energy, but causes the Earth to spin in the other direction. Satisfied, the professors at Mars University give Amy an award for saving planet Earth.
Is it Possible?
The main question this episode poses is, “what would happen if the Earth really stopped rotating? Also, what would happen if the Earth moved in the other direction?” Meteorologist Peter Gibbs tries to answer those questions. He says that the Coriolis Effect, which describes the motion of weather patterns based on the rotation of the Earth, explains why storms in the northern-hemisphere rotate counterclockwise while storms in the southern-hemisphere rotate clockwise. Gibbs also says that jet streams would reverse. This would cause moderate summers to turn into really dry and hot summers. Trade winds would also flow north and west (instead of north and east), which would make lush areas dry and deserts would become forests [2].
Even Worse
What would be even worse is if the Earth stopped rotating altogether. The Earth has a magnetic field, mostly due to the rotating energy of the Earth. The magnetic field helps block radiation from the Sun. Theoretically, it would then take a year to cycle from night to day. So half of the year a city will be in complete darkness and the other half of the year the city will be exposed to direct sunlight. There is a “centrifugal force” (not a real force!) that keeps the water at the equator. Without the rotation of the Earth, the water at the equator would rush toward the poles [3].
It might be possible that humans could still survive if the Earth stopped spinning. However, a lot of tasks would be inconvenient. To some degree, “Futurama” was right. It would probably follow that winter would result from prolonged darkness and direct exposure to the Sun would result in dry weather. So the people in “Futurama” can be thankful for Amy making the Earth spin in the other direction. However, the episode does not take into account the Coriolis Effect, so everything would not return to normal.