Jroa, you cannot use a sky diving simulator to argue that jumping from a plane does not mean you are falling to Earth. I use wave simulators to practice my surfing a great deal, but when I am on an actual wave I know that I am moving forward, just the same as when a person is skydiving they know they are falling down and not floating in mid air like they would in a simulator.
The simulator was just an example to show that the same effects are seen if the air is moving past you or if you are moving through the air. If we were to blue screen the background and replace the simulator with sky, would the videos of the simulator not look identical to actual skydiving? The only difference really is that the people do not have the sensation of the Earth coming towards them. However, I still maintain that you can not feel speed, only changes in speed.
I once again do not doubt your intellect, I just would like to know why a person falling at 90 MPH towards an Earth moving towards that diver at whatever velocity (I keep hearing not the speed of light, but then some people say Earth is moving at nearly the speed of light so I am confused) how can that person be in mid air for minutes, not just a few, but around 10-15 minutes before needing to deploy their parachute.
Once again, I will remind you that speed is relative. If you are in a train going 60 mph, and you start walking towards the front of the train at 2 mph, your net speed is 62 mph. However, relative to your surroundings, you are only moving 2 mph. If the Earth is traveling upwards at, say, 1,000,000 miles per hour (just for this example), and you were moving in the same direction at 999,910 mph, then you and the Earth would appear to be converging at 90 mph. I don't understand what you find so hard to believe about this.
It just seems that the math is stacked against UA. I am not a math major or anything and I am only taking online classes while still an enlisted in the military, but I do have common sense and a lot of friends who sky dive. Their first hand account and storys show me that they are falling towards Earth. not Earth coming towards them.
I do not see where UA comes into this. It may possibly be the force that is accelerating the Earth, but it is just a theory. We were discussing gravity and gravity like effects.
Please do not take me as hostile, I really do want to know more and take every bit of criticism as a positive means to learning. I just do not observe or hear from first hand account what you are telling me about Earth accelerating.
I am not taking anything to be hostile. I am just trying to explain a little physics to you.