* So can anyone tell us why people and everything weigh the same at the equator and the poles, when centrifugal force should reduce weight at the equator? The Earth is a globe spinning about 1,000 miles per hour at the equator and 0 mph at the poles. Gravity "pulls" inward evenly over the whole surface, but centrifugal force opposes gravity most at the equator, where there's the fastest motion.* Centrifugal Force (CF): the apparent force that is felt by an object moving in a curved path that acts outwardly away from the center of rotation. If the Earth were rotating the CF would cause people, objects and valuable commodities to weigh less at the equator than at more northern or southern lines of latitude. The equation for Centrifugal Force is CF = (mass x velocity squared) over radius. That means that one could transport cargo ships full of valuable commodities from the equator where it would weigh less and then proceed to sell them up north or south for a higher price. Opponents admit that there is a weight difference but only 0.9%. That means that multimillion dollar commodity shipments would be missing thousands of tons...... but they are NOT!!*
* I think the reason centrifugal force doesn't have much effect on weight is because the Earth would have to be spinning quite a bit faster in order to reduce weight much at the equator. Since the Earth is almost 4,000 miles in radius, the 1,000 miles of motion in one hour would only involve almost straight motion and only a small percent of curved motion, maybe 2%. That's like moving 2 feet curved for every 100 feet straight.