Earth and Physics

In terms of immediate physical effects, if the earth were to come to a sudden stop in space, what effect would things like momentum have? Would mountains topple? Would oceans splash around?

Well, yes. Since every object with matter has the property of inertia, an acceleration in the inertial system of the earth would cause a force in that system on all those objects due to that property.

"sudden stop in space" relative to what? the sun?
The earth is orbiting the sun ~ 30 km/s, so a sudden stop would be rather catastrophic [ie near total destruction of the planet]

Yes, relative to the sun.

So it would still be similar to say, a tanker full of water and in motion suddenly coming to a stop? Or a large pile of dirt in a similar scenario?

I guess I kind of thought the earth, being in space, somehow the effects might not be the same as actually being on the earth.

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>>4
Well, it all depends on how sudden the stop, but no, being in space makes no difference. The earth couldn't possibly stop suddenly on its own. There would have to be some external force acting on it. The effect of the stop would all depend on the strength and duration of this force. I suppose, also, how it's distributed (whether it's acting on the whole earth evenly, or just a small part of it.) Anyway to make it stop "suddenly" or quickly, the force would have to be enormous and probably end all life as we know it.

>>6
Escape velocity is 11 km/sec, so if the earth suddenly stopped, the people on one side of earth would fly off into space, and the people on the other side would get crushed into the ground.  Not sure if the in-between people would fly off into space completely or just get thrown really far only to fall back down to earth again.

>>8
What the do you mean by "in-between people"? The ones tangent to the sphere of the earth? They would certainly get thrown off too.

>>5
Is that a virus by any chance?