What Speed would you have to travel to go around the earth in 24 hours?

Answer 1

Everybody standing on the Earth "travels around the Earth" in 24 hours. Therefore, you are essentially asking "How fast does a point on the Earth's surface move about the Earth's axis?" Given that the Earth's equatorial circumference is 24,902.44 miles, (the part of the Earth's surface that is farthest away from the Earth's axis, an imaginary line running from pole to pole), it is easy to see that the fastest speed is going to be a bit over 1,000 miles per hour, as there are 24 hours in a day. The more precise number is 1,037.6 mph, which you can easily figure out using a calculator. If you stand 1 millimeter away from the North or South pole, and wait a day, you will "travel around the Earth" also. Your rate of speed is quite low, as you will have moved only a tiny fraction of an inch around the Earth's axis, but would have taken a day to do it. You can't QUITE say that your speed is 0 miles/hour, but it is reasonably close to it! The Know It All answer to the question then becomes, "Somewhere between 0 and 1,038 mph!", as the original questioner probably MEANT "how fast does a point on the equator move"... If they were relatively unsophisticated, they probably meant "You don't have to move at all, just stand on the Earth", but you now can give them a sassy answer back.