When you travelling in a jet plane, why do objects on the ground look as though they are still or moving slowly?
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game masta
ANSWERS: 4
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You are very far away from the ground. When you see something far away, it looks a lot smaller, right? So imagine that you're in the plane and you see a mile-long road on the ground below. It wouldn't look very long at all. You travel along that road very quickly, but it doesn't seem like you've gone an entire mile because one mile appears to be such a short distance from far away. You know how when you're riding in a car, objects close to the car seem to whiz by, but hills, buildings, or mountains in the distance seem to go by very slowly? Same concept. Perhaps my wording has been a bit confusing, but I hope that helps.
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Because they are.
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This is kind of a continuation of ErikaJ's answer. The reason why things seem to move slowly is because of how your eye works. First of all, the eye can not detect distance. If you close one eye, there is no way for you to determine whether it is a large box far away or a small box up close, unless there are other visual clues. How humans percieve distance is because there are two eyes. Each eye seems something slightly different. When something is close, the eyes see very different things. When something is very far, the eyes see almost the same image. Additionally, eyes can only detect changes in angle, nothing else. When you are very high up in an airplane, even though things on the ground are moving very fast relative to you (maybe 600km/h), because of the extremely far distance, the angle that changes is extremely small. Your eye sees a really small change in angle, and your brain tells you that you are moving slowly.
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Relativity. Since you are so high up in the sky, everything seems to move slowly. You primarily relate your self and the airplane to the ground because the the biggest thing you can see as a background. If your in a car, the road and surroundings would be your background. Up in the sky, theres nothing but clear, blue clouds and nothing else. If there were trees or building growing out the skies, you would definitely realize that you are traveling at a very high speed.
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