The Moving Earth Frame

Rotation, wobble, and transport memory in the frame we actually inhabit

Scope: Application
Mode: Science (Σ-clean)
Primary Concept: Earth as a non-inertial transported frame

1. There Is No Stationary Earth

Most terrestrial physics is taught as if Earth were an inertial platform with small corrections. This is false. Earth is a continuously transported frame undergoing rotation, translation, and orientation drift.

Every observation made on Earth inherits this motion.

2. Primary Motions of the Earth Frame

The Earth frame includes multiple simultaneous transports:

None of these motions close cleanly.

3. Frame Memory and Surface Motion

Oceans, atmosphere, and crust are transported with Earth while retaining velocity and phase memory.

This memory is not reset each rotation or orbit.

4. Why Coriolis Is Not a Force

The Coriolis effect is the visible imprint of Earth’s rotating frame on transported motion.

It vanishes only when the observer co-rotates perfectly with the transported system.

a_C = -2 \Omega_\oplus \times v

5. Wobble as Non-Closure

Chandler wobble and polar motion are not oscillations about equilibrium. They are the slow accumulation of orientation mismatch under transport.

The Earth frame never fully realigns with itself.

6. Seasonal and Secular Drift

Seasonal cycles do not repeat exactly. Length of day, angular momentum exchange, and atmospheric circulation exhibit long-term drift.

This drift is the signature of memory in a non-inertial frame.

7. Why Force-Based Models Struggle

Force-based descriptions treat Earth motion as a perturbation to be corrected.

Each correction erases memory and reintroduces forces to compensate.

8. The Inertia Encyclopedia Position

The Earth is not a platform. It is a transported frame.

Weather, tides, and long-period motion are expressions of frame memory — not reactions to applied forces.