Physics Puzzle - Moving on a Frictionless Surface

Coming across the old episode of 'The Magic School Bus,' where all the kids were sliding around a proverbeal frictionless surface... It brought me to ask:

Consider the following:

You are on Earth, which follows all of the natural dynamic geographical properties (Earth's rotation, wind, the moon, solar flares, etc).

Earth, for our purposes, is a perfect sphere on the surface, and gravity is equal throughout.

You are *standing* on an absolutely frictionless surface.

Disregard menial changes to the body like sweating or exfoliation.

Puzzle repeat is spoiler space

Straight down towards the centre of the Earth?

On a frictionless surface there are no negligible impulses.

So try farting.

Or poop in your hand and then throw it.

If there's wind, it'll blow you along. You can try angling your body like a ail to gain some control over where you go, but on a featureless earth it probably doesn't matter much anyway.

BTW, I think you'll find it imposible to stand on the frictionless surface, you'll fall over pretty quickly.

If you are on a spherical rotating earth, you will eventually end up oscillating about on the equator under the influence of lunar and solar tidal effects and winds.

If the earth shape is sufficiently oblate to offset the effects of rotation and the cumulative effects of tidal forces towards the equator, your motion would be a good deal more random, since air resistance would tend to dampen out much of the periodic tidal effects.

* Spit in the direction opposite to which you want to move.

earle *

That's where I'm going with this. I talked to a physics professor and he said that there would be at least 20 absolutely unique solutions involving concepts from electromagnetics, solar wind, gravity, inertia, et cetera.

As for the vulgar human functions, they are applicable, but unfortunately, they all count for just one (expelling body mass outwards).

In reality, the answer 'WAIT' is appropriate, however, one can go into more detail by talking about the effects that cause motion.

Seems like the harder question is: How do you stop moving on a frictionless surface? Perhaps some magnetic gadget. Steering would also present problems. Would there be roads?

Not really. Breathing should be sufficient to move you in a suitable direction at any desired speed: just be sure to breathe in and out in different directions. If you look down when breathing in and then blow horizontally there should be no problem in accelerating to any desired speed quite quickly.

Alternatively get a flat bit of cardboard and flap it up and down.

I assume that I am now stationary with respect to that portion of the earth's surface that I am standing on. I reckon that without doing anything, I will have moved hundreds of miles (with respect to the earth's surface) within a few hours.

You won't be able to tack very effectively on a frictionless surface. You don't have anything to use as a rudder, so you won't be able to create any force in any direction other than the one the wind is pushing you. Sail boats work by pushing sideways to the wind by means of their rudder.

You will be able to make only a very small effect by having your body at an angle, so it redirects the wind. The result will be that you start to spin pretty quickly. So you would find it very hard indeed to navigate.