Sitting comfortably in your soft chair, reading the book in your lap
or listening to your mp3 player with buds stuffed in your ears.
Your eyes are heavy, hard to hold them open, and the rest of you
is getting drowsy. From time to time, maybe every few minutes,
your soft chair rocks gently side to side a few times, then settles
down. It's getting dark outside, and you are getting sooo sleeepy . . .
Your soft chair is in Row-27 of the passenger airliner you're riding in.
The airplane is cruising 35,000 feet above the ground, and relative
to the people on the ground, you, the plane, and your book are all
traveling at almost 500 miles per hour.
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You're relaxing on your beach chair, in your back yard, working on
your tan on a warm sunny day. Just like on the airplane last week,
you're warm and comfy, and getting drowsy.
Relative to the Earth's axis, you're moving at around 700 miles
per hour, but the direction of your motion is only changing by about
1 degree each 4 minutes.
Relative to the sun's axis, you're moving at almost 67,000 miles
per hour, but the direction of your motion is only changing by about
1 degree each day.
