Posted by
Hemos
on from the getting-flatter-all-the-time dept.
RJG2 writes "MSNBC has an article stating that Earth's gravitational field has changed, becoming stronger towards the equator, thus becoming flatter. The cause has yet to be determined, but it is assumed changes in ocean levels are responsible."
Earth gets fatter at the equator, hence more localised mass as opposed to that at the poles, hence more gravity at the equator...
If Global Warming is true, then...
by
fudgefactor7
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· Score: 1, Interesting
Shouldn't the opposite be happening? Global Warming is being blamed for the melting of the polar caps, if that's the case then shouldn't the gravitational field be even more round?
Re:If Global Warming is true, then...
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dnoyeb
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· Score: 3
No.
Where does the melted ice go? -> equator. What makes gravity? -> mass.
More mass at the equator means more gravitational force.
Yeah, i remeber reading about the poles flipping. the magnetical north pole is closing in on canada, or somewhere near there. Werent we going to get much less gravity as a result?
Actually, the poles are due to reverse. They've reversed frequently in the past, and the record is contained in rocks found in ocean crust. When techtonic plates pull apart and magma rises, the newly formed rock is stamped with a record of which way was magneticaly north. the record from the rift in the Atlantic ocean indicates that the poles have shifted several times in the past.
Re:Good Ol' Ga�a
by
questionlp
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· Score: 2, Funny
So that explains all of the heat streaks (aka hot flashes), wildfires (heartburn), flooding (sweating), and earthquakes (mood swings) that have been going on lately.
Contrary to an early assumption on my part, European Linux users appear cleaner and in a better state of physical repair than their American contemporaries.
There are two competing factors, the force away from the center of the earth caused by the Earth's rotation, and that of gravity. The Earth is about 15km different in diameter from poles to equator, with the equator being further away than the poles. While it might be true that the Earth's gravity field (the gravitational equipotential field, or the "geoid" I believe) has been getting flatter, it still isn't round. While I haven't checked the equations lately, I think gravity still wins out over the rotational part, and you'd be _heavier_ when you moved to the poles, due to being in closer proximity to the center of the earth.
-- If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide. -Ghandi
Good point. I guess I'm a northern hemisphere bigot.
Are there actually any people south of the equator anyway?? I know there are some over in that place they call Europe, but actually _south_ of the equator? Come on! They probably just _look_ human, you know, like Martha Stuart.:-)
-- If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide. -Ghandi
Planet Earth has simply slimmed down from 18 down to 17 trillion tons, all by using the Ab Roller...and it can work for YOU! Call now, operators are standing by...
-- Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Does this mean eventually we'll have a "sweet spot", like what was shown on Enterprise? Will we be able to go the say, the Artic Circle, and push off a mountain and experience some zero-G fun? And like, how will the climates and enviroments of places further from the equaitor alter? This sounds interesting, yet scary at the same time.
--
--Reverend Raven Desperate days demand dire deeds.
Yes, the Earth has a zero-G "sweet spot". It's even caused by the same phenomenon as on the Enterprise, cancelling gravitational fields, except this one is real. No, absolutely nothing mentioned in the article will change the zero-G sweet spot Earth has.
Discovery of the location of the "sweet spot" is left as an exercise for the reader, or a student of freshman college physics.
Following that lead, and given that there is less gravitational pull at the poles, would that then mean that penguins have lost their attractiveness? If so, what about apples?
Re:Computer populations
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tiedyejeremy
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· Score: 1
Would that be caused by magnetic media?
-- Anything you say will be held against you.... "tits"
Re:Computer populations
by
Dyolf+Knip
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· Score: 2
Following that lead, and given that there is less gravitational pull at the poles, would that then mean that penguins have lost their attractiveness?
That might explain why Linux hasn't done well on the desktop market...
That's weird because I just saw a news story yesterday that the Earth is getting FATTER at the equator, due to movement of some magma mass or something. You'd figure gravity would be slightly less as a result. It already bulges out at the equator anyhow.
Re:earth getting fatter
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schmink182
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· Score: 1
You mean this? IANA physicist but I'll bet they're entirely related
Why would the addition of mass at the equator, reduce gravity?
Re:earth getting fatter
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Further away from the Earth's center of gravity?
Re:earth getting fatter
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Yes, but it's not as though you're above the surface of the earth, you're on it.
Imagine a huge disc with the mass of the earth but only a meter thick. At the edge, the gravitational attraction will be large towards the center of the disc. In the center of one of the faces, you only have a meter of mass in the direction of the center of gravity, and most of the mass extending away from you in every direction radially, attracting you in every direction with little net effect. Hence, less gravitational force towards the center, even though you're quite close to it. As earth's shape changes from a perfect sphere and becomes more flattened, this effect becomes more pronounced.
I think the other response was in consideration of the weaker gravity at the top of high mountains. The gravity at the base of Mt. Everest is slightly higher than the gravity at the summit.
I think it's because there is so little extra mass, the bulk of Mt. Everest, between the summit and the center of the Earth, as opposed to between the mountain's base and the center of the Earth. The increase in gravity from more mass is out-weighed by the lessening of the gravitational pull as you go up the mountain-side, away from the source of the gravity.
Your disk example adds a considerable amount of mass not only between the person at the outer edge, but also to the opposite side of the disk. This would add more gravitational pull as the disk gets larger. Although as it got even larger, and much thinner, the gravity may drop again.
Could observing change in the gravitational field help in determining what exactly is gravity?
I mean, sometimes it's easier to observe something which have variable input-output then observing something which is constant. At least when you have some control over the input/outpout part.
But if they can manage to determine exactly what input on earth has changed which could impact gravity, could it help them find what is gravity? Any physicist out there more knowledegable then me? (There sure is, I'm not even a physicist...)
--
I'd rather be sailing...
Re:Could it help science?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
IANAP but what about gravity being the result of bent space? The more mass an object has the more it bends space.
Example, have four people hold a blanket and stretch is out as far as it will go. Now place a basketball in the center, what happens? The blanket sags a little bit where the basketball is, and if you roll a golf ball it, it will fall into the bend and "orbit" the basketball.
Of course this is a 2D model of a 3D world, but sounds reasonable to me?
Re:Could it help science?
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NorthDude
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· Score: 1
I know this part of the relativity theory, but it doesn't explain a lot of things...
It is said that it bent space-time, but what's exactly space-time?!?
Why is it that time is "faster" when gravity is harder?
--
I'd rather be sailing...
Re:Could it help science?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
it prolly won't help much since most of the big boys studying the subatomic werld are still waiting for someone to build a really big super collider!
Actually we have another little hitch with the theory of realativity. Well two one is that we can stop or slow light down now and we have been able to accelerate a particle faster then the 186k per sec limit oh and little g the gravitational constant turns out to not be member the 32 ft/sec^2 for acceleration due to gravity?
in shoort einstein was wrong but he did have a good guess and we are damn happy he married calculus with physics! grrrr
... if you want to lose weight, keep moving north =) side benefit: weaker field near the poles means you are somewhat less likely to get nailed by de-orbiting satellites - natural or otherwise.
-- when it rains, it gets real soggy. when it pours, i'm under the tap just _waiting_ for the joy
Change In Time?
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ackthpt
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I've been hearing about this on the BBC for the past couple of days. The thought that occurred to me was this: if mass is moving from the poles to the equator, will the rotation of the earth slow, even a tiny amount, but enough that we have to adjust time in a few years?
I expect so.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The earth's rotation is slowing anyway. This is the reason that they insert those "leap seconds" every few years to compensate for the lost time. To my knowledge like 16 leap seconds have been added since the government started tracking time with atomic clocks. I'm to lazy to find a link now though, as its just about time to drive home;)
The Earth's rotational rate is changing due to energy lost during ocean and earth tides (the solid part of the earth goes up and down in response to the gravitational tugging of the moon as well), as well as a differential rotation between the Earth's inner and outer core, etc. I don't think a small change in sea level will do too much compared to what is already occuring. The Earth has a radius of about 6371 Km, pretty much all of it having a denisty _significantly_ larger than water (a good chunk of the earth consists of nickel-iron after all!). I don't think a couple more meters of water will do much.
-- If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide. -Ghandi
True, but like everything, the earths rotation is more complex. Every once in a while a storm get enough wind to speed things up. (And presumably the reverse happens too) Thats why the leap seconds don't happen with any pattern.
No he is not. We change time by leap seconds so that we don't get too disoriented when we wake up and its just sunset.
Fossils are measured on an absoulate scale. Length of a day a few million years ago was a also very different as it is today.
Re:Change In Time?
by
Fenris2001
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· Score: 3, Interesting
In short - yes. But it won't have any major effect. The number of seconds in a year already fluctuates as large weather systems (El Nino) change the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. Like a spinning ballet dancer extending her arms, excess water in the atmosphere near the Equator causes the Earth's rotation to slow. However, the total change is miniscule - something like half a nanosecond per year. Particle physicists and others who need extremely accurate measures of time make adjustments for these effects. The rest of us don't notice.
Re:Change In Time?
by
alchemist68
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· Score: 1, Interesting
Since the 1970s, we've lost around 20 seconds in the day. The loss of time throughout the day has not been linear through the years, suggesting that there are complex systems at work that need further study and modeling.
I don't think a couple more meters of water will do much.
And how much will our future space elevators slow the Earth over time? These equatorial spokes won't be very massive but they'll extend thousands of kilometers like giant arms, and additionally, Earth'll lose momentum for every unit of mass that never returns to the surface.
I'm sure it'd still be a miniscule but measurable effect.
But hey! We could always attach giant solar sails to the ends of these spokes such the sun's solar energy would "spin" the Earth back up to equilibrium.:-)
BUT, to get an idea of the size of the earth, if you were to draw a big circle on a piece of paper, the crust of the earth, the part we spend all our time on and haven't ever drilled through even half of it, would be over represented by the thickness of the line. (Crustal thickness on average is say 40 Km, the earth is 6371 Km in diameter, that's about.63%. By percent weight its even smaller (by alot)). A good 6000 km diameter of the earth is made of nickel-iron (DENSE!), and the mantle of the earth aint too light either.
And even if we don't ever get the weight back from space elevators, I bet the time integrated weight of all the space dust and meteors we sweep out of space over millions of years would offset it.
Anyway, I just don't think most Slashdotters understand the magnitude of the volumes and forces they are talking about. The tidal forces of the moon are much more significant, and even that's barely measurable integrated over very long time periods.
But what the hell. I'm a geophysics grad student, and am probably a little over anal about these things.:-)
-- If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide. -Ghandi
I figured the effect would be insignificant, but thanks for the lesson in scale anyway.:)
I once calculated that if every man, woman and child on Earth (6.2B) wanted to own their own spacecraft with a mass equivalent of a modern aircraft carrier (100,000 tons vs. the Shuttle's 100 tons), it would amount to around 1/100,000th of 1 percent of the Earth's total mass. Seems like it would be a big deal, but isn't.
The earth's rotation is slowing anyway. This is the reason that they insert those "leap seconds" every few years to compensate for the lost time
No. Thats a misunderstanding. The earths is slowing down. But this is measured in milliseconds pr century and is completely negligible in this context.
The reason for the frequent insertions of leap seconds is that the definitions of the time-span of a second and our definition of the length of a year (in seconds) don't match up. If we adjusted our definition of a second just a little bit we could tune the length of a second to make it fit our definition of the length of a year, and then we only needed to make a correction once a century.
I seem to have read an article a while back that suggested the north and south pole change positions every so many hundred years. This theory was created after scientists detected alternating magnetic signitures of the sea bed. Could this be one of those switches happening?
-foxxz
Re:Magnetic Pole Changing
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Foxxz
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· Score: 3, Funny
PS-We could probably fix this if we all degauss our monitors at 0900 hours tomarrow:P
Re:Magnetic Pole Changing
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Xaoswolf
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· Score: 2
I'm not a geologist, but I don't believe that the magnetic feild surrounding the earth had anything to do with gravity. Magnetic North has been wandering around the globe for years without any change in gravity.
Re:Magnetic Pole Changing
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Apocalypse111
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· Score: 1
The magnetic field of the earth DOES change polarity every so often... but we are not due for another such switch for a great many years, and the pole does not spontaneously shift, it gradually changes, sort of "wandering" toward the other side of the planet.
Such changes, along with sea floor spreading, are one reason that geologists confirmed continental drift theory. If you look at the seafloor magnetically as it spreads from the Mid-Atlantic ridge, you will see a patern of magnetic "stripes", detailing the polarity of the planet at the time the crust at that point was formed at the ridge.
-- There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
Re:Magnetic Pole Changing
by
Zone5
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Actually, the polarity supposedly switches roughly every 200,000 years, and according to that school of thought we're currently way overdue to the tune of about 780,000 years. See here.
Assuming you believe all that, of course. As far as I know it's just a theory.
-- "So on one hand, honey is an amazingly sophisticated and efficient food source. On the other hand it's bee backwash."
Actually, the understanding that the Earth's magnetic field periodically switches polarity was known before the discovery of the magnetic stripes on the seafloor. Bruhnes, in 1906, put forth the hypothesis that there were reversals.
The precise dating of these reversal became practical in the late 1950's due to great advances in K-Ar dating techniques. There was then a big effort to map out this sequence in the 1960'. Coincidentally, the first series of "detailed" magnetic maps of the seafloor were also becoming available in the 60's. In 1963, Vine and Matthew published the seminal paper that hypothesized that the magnetic stripes on the seafloor were related to seafloor spreading and the magnetic field reversals.
In 1965 Vine and Wilson used the best known magnetic time scale to match the pattern of seafloor stripes on the Juan de Fuca Ridge (off Washington state). In doing so, they were the first to compute a spreading rate. Unfortunately, the best available time scale was missing a key reversal, and hence their match was incorrect. They discretely "fixed" this problem a couple of years later using a better magnetic time scale.
Re:Magnetic Pole Changing
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Xenographic
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· Score: 1
Can you imagine, though, the problems that might cause? Forget the Y2K bug, how'd you like to reverse all your compases if this ever happened? Oogh...
Re:Magnetic Pole Changing
by
Dirtside
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· Score: 2
Offtopic reply:
I hate to be pedantic (aw, who am I kidding, I love being pedantic), but in general, saying "it's just a theory" is... well... not a good idea. (The page you referenced has a lot of bullshit new-agey stuff about higher dimensions and so on, but that's neither here nor there. Remember, "newage" rhymes with "sewage".:) )
To a scientist, a "theory" is something that explains all or most of the known evidence, is well-supported by facts, and makes testable predictions. Many well-established things like universal gravitation, aerodynamics, thermodynamics, and so forth, are all "theories".
The word you're probably looking for is "hypothesis", which means "an idea that potentially explains the facts, but isn't yet well-supported and well-tested enough to be considered a theory."
Of course, it's a pretty smooth continuum between the places where an idea is considered a "hypothesis" and where it becomes a "theory" but dismissing a scientific theory as "just a theory" is misguided at best.
The magnetic field of the earth DOES change polarity every so often... but we are not due for another such switch for a great many years, and the pole does not spontaneously shift, it gradually changes, sort of "wandering" toward the other side of the planet
Whilst it does wander, my understanding is that during a switch the strength of the magnetic field drops to zero, and then increases in the other direction.
This is an important difference, as for a time it means that the background radiation will go up (charged particles are no longer deflected to make pretty patterns in the north).
This could have an effect upon mutation rates, etc.
Of course, I could be mistaken.
--
Murky
A wannabe geek with no money to geek with.
I wonder if this is perhaps due to the ongoing mettling of mankind with Nature? Perhaps are great steel mills, automobiles, lead paints, and electromagnetic communications devices are finally taking their toll.
Just remember that if this trend continues, we may end up destroying one of the things that make human civilization possible (compasses). In that case, we'll either be wiped out or have to start again from scratch. Come to think of it, maybe the Universe would be better off without us.
--
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
If you have read any of the previous posts or looked into the matter a bit before pointing fingers, you'd see that the magnetic field has been switching back and forth for a long time before humans, let alone industrial humans. On top of that, man doesn't mettle with nature like I open up my VCR and mettle with it. Man is a part of nature, not external from it. We have the right, just like any other being in nature to affect our surroundings and to survive and flourish from what the universe has provided us. We're not mettling with nature, we're simply being a part of it.
On another note, how much do you think humans would be affected right now by a pole switch? I really don't know...
-- The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Back to the Future quote
by
uncoveror
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· Score: 5, Funny
"There's that word again, heavy. Is there a problem with the Earth's gravitational pull?"
-- The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
Excellent news
by
SpatchMonkey
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
This really is excellent news for Linux and Open Source software. Bravo!
If the earth's gravitational field has 'flattened out' or concentrated more around the equator, that implies that the center of mass has concentrated there - the earth has *Developed* a spare tire, not lost one.
So give me 50,000 more laps around the sun, and no rest breaks!
-- "So on one hand, honey is an amazingly sophisticated and efficient food source. On the other hand it's bee backwash."
Actually no. But the earths rotation will slow due to the spare tire.. Basically it works both ways. We already had a bulge due to rotation, this is from another source.
To some degree, yes the earth is flattened for that reason. Any *increase* in that flattening would assume that the centripetal acceleration experienced by masses on the equator was sufficiently pronounced to be able to counteract the natural gravitational pull experienced by every point on the earth towards its gravitational center - a flatter earth would therefore imply either a faster rate of rotation, or else a decrease in gravitational self-attraction.
Since we're not experiencing shorter days, and my ever-increasing weight indicates the earth's attraction for me is not lessening, I suspect that's not the cause. Besides, we're talking about a flatter gravitational field, not a flatter earth.:)
-- "So on one hand, honey is an amazingly sophisticated and efficient food source. On the other hand it's bee backwash."
Maybe its because
by
Ark42
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· Score: 1, Interesting
A star or planet or something that is now closer then it was before is tugging at the Earth as it spins, causing it to bulge out towards whatever is pulling at it?
Re:All those dang asteriods
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eyepeepackets
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· Score: 2
Hmm, well, if there were external forces pulling on the planet we'd see other similar effects throughout the side of the solar system we're currently floating through. Perhaps a small piece of blackhole material (wouldn't have to be very big at all) might be able to do this, but there would be effects on all the floaters (planets, asteroids, comets, etc.) in the solar system and such effects would be noticable pretty quick I'd think, but only if someone were looking for them.
That could really, really screw us up and for a long time too. Imagine if all those asteroids suddenly had their courses changed.
Bah, I'm blaming all this paranoia on too much diet coke, heh.
-- Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
Re:All those dang asteriods
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tgibbs
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· Score: 2
One possible effect will be all those near misses [slashdot.org] and potential threats [slashdot.org] becoming reality.
No, remember that the earth's total gravity can't change unless we gain mass from somewhere. At asteroid distances, these slight asymmetries are going to average out, and the earth will attract like a point mass.
Not a problem
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
We'll just reroute power from the warp core to the hull plating. This should create a dampening field. We can then get a sensor lock on it.
Re:Not a problem
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Don't forget to reverse the polarity.
Ocean levels?
by
Arandir
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· Score: 3, Interesting
What changes in ocean levels? Did this just happen yesterday or something?
Considering that I live at an altitude of 20 feet and one mile from the ocean, I would think I would be one of the first people to know if the ocean level was changing. From what I can tell, the level of the Pacific Ocean is still the same as it was when I was a kid.
-- A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Re:Ocean levels?
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0, Funny
Whew. That makes me feel SO much better about driving my Ford Excursion. And burning all of the coal for fuel. And having all of those methane-farting cows in the back yard. And pushing my two stroke gas lawn mower around my backyard. And then driving the Excursion some more. I thought I might have to start using the nuclear power grid instead of burning fuel oil pretty soon.
Now that your annecdotal evidence proves that global warming doesn't effect ocean levels, and that there has been no change in ocean levels over the last fifty years, I feel so much better.
This doesn't necessarily mean anything... if you read the article it also says that due to the ice-age rebound some areas go up 1/4 of an inch a year.
If you were in an area that goes up only, say, 1/10th of an inch a year, your 'the level of the sea hasn't changed' observation would mean that the sea level has, in fact, gone up 2 inches (let's assume you were a kid 20 years ago)
What changes in ocean levels? Did this just happen yesterday or something?
The sea level has risen 15 to 20 cm in the last 100 years. And by the acceleration in the global warming I supouse it will start rising faster. If this continues there will be a lot of costal cities sunk under the sea by the end of this century.
Just out of curiousity, if the ocean levels rose 15-20 cm in 100 years, how do you extrapolate and say that in the next 100 years, coastal cities are going to be underwater? Are there that many cities that are built at an elevation of 10 centimeters?
--
How can we continue to believe in a
just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
15-20cm is more than you think. Considering that the world population (and corresponding heat generation) Has more that quintupled in the last fifty years and is going to double in the next 30 we might have some problems. 15-20cm in a city with a high water table wil destroy sewer systems, contaminate fresh water aquifers, soften and weaken building foundations, further erode beaches, and generally require expensive engineering solutions to alleviate problems.
Global warming won't kill us, but it is a royal pain in the ass.
The world is flat like your head
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Other possible causes:
Shift away from Redmond as center of the earth
450% increase in tropical population over last 75 years
An ultrasecret CIA program to destabilize developing governments by tilting them slightly
It's the SHAPE, see Net Scientist
by
Great_Geek
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· Score: 2, Informative
New Scientist also has an article on this, see http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id= ns999 92628
The MSNBC report is misleading - the measurement (by satellites)is of gravity, but the conclusion is about the shape of the planet. The prime suspect, currently, is ocean currents.
Ask my ex workmate, it's the NT7 :)
by
jukal
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· Score: 4, Funny
My ex-workmate is rather convinced (don't ask me why:))) that changes like this are caused by the NT7 asteroid which, he believes, will shift earth's magnetism that everything will basicly destroy. Yup, he belives it does not hit the earth, it just passes by so that everything gets wicked. He might be almost blind, but he is a hellable coder. So prepare to get extincted!
Re:Ask my ex workmate, it's the NT7 :)
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SandSpider
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· Score: 2
My ex-workmate is rather convinced that changes like this are caused by the NT7 asteroid which, he believes, will shift earth's magnetism that everything will basicly destroy.
If you're referring to a differential gravitational attraction similar to that involved in Roche Limit" deformation of orbiting bodies, then no. What you're suggesting implies that the gravitational pull on the equator is significantly stronger than that on the polar regions. Since gravitational attraction drops off exponentially as the distance between the two bodies increases, that kind of differential pull only occurs when the gravitational bodies are relatively-speaking quite close together.
Perhaps if the moon had suddenly increased in mass a thousand-fold, but not possible due to distant stars or planets.
-- "So on one hand, honey is an amazingly sophisticated and efficient food source. On the other hand it's bee backwash."
So maybe the moon is getting closer to the Earth, or some alienes landed on the dark side and set up a secret base?
Guess we'd probably notice if the moon was really getting closer, but would anybody notice if something snuck up and landed on the dark side of the moon? We dont even see asteroids coming from the direction of the sun until after they pass.
There is indeed a secret base on the dark side of the moon. The Martians put it there. Whether it is the cause of the change in Earth's gravity field, I can't say.
"would anybody notice if something snuck up and landed on the dark side of the moon? "
Sure. If it happened two weeks after the full moon.
Re:Ummm. no.
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
He doesn't mean the literal dark side, i.e. the side with no light. The term "dark side" is used to refer to the side of the moon that never faces earth, regardless of whether it's dark or light at any particular time.
Mid life crisis?
by
CrazyDwarf
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· Score: 4, Funny
It could be worse, we could be combing Ozone over from areas around the north pole.
-- It's easy to stand out when the general level of competence is so low.
Re:Mid life crisis?
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Actually it's the South Pole that's got a bigger thinning problem.:-|
So if this change is due to rising ocean, or earth is getting fatter at the equator, won't this affect a whole shitload of other things?:
earth's rotation -> length of day -> amount of axial wobble change -> seasonal azimuth -> earth climate?
And if gravity is higher at the equator - won't this affect time, since time slows down in a higher gravity field? I'm sure that these changes are all rather insignificant taken separately, but taken together, doesn't this have an impact on accuracy of scientific measurements? Will everything need to be recalibrated?
-- These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Geez. The Earth's rotation is already slowing due to other things (and has been for a very long time), and the moment of inertia for the Earth is gigantic. A couple meters of water isn't going to change much, and the planetary climate changes are much more sensitive to other things than loosing a tiny bit of rotation every hundred millin years or so.
-- If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide. -Ghandi
A "couple of meters" change in ocean levels would destroy cities and, in some cases, whole nations. Much of my home state, Florida, would simply disappear. If we were to get more than one or two centimeters increase in just one year, you would do well to consider moving to higher ground within the next decade or so.
But that's just us. The planet as a whole has indeed been through far worse and emerged unscathed.
True, a couple meters would certainly be over stating the matter. I was over exaggerating to be sure.
However, you are very wrong about the normal variablity of sea level. The level of the Earth's oceans are _not_ the same level all over the world. Due to gravitational anomalies, wind, rotation of the earth, etc., you could raise the level of the ocean in some places quite a bit and never see it in other areas. The greatest variablity comes from temperature differences. Average sea level change has been measured to be as much as 40 cm in some places, and we haven't been measuring for that long. It is very possible to get higher anomalies. The area around Florida gets annual changes of at least a couple cm.
So, I will retract my rather hasty "meters" in my quick response, but you will forgive me if I don't worry about change of a couple cm, as I would have to head for the hills on a very regular basis.
Perhaps you meant integrated over the whole globe perhaps?? That would be disturbing. However that was certainly not the type of anomaly the article was referring to.
-- If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide. -Ghandi
The article was referring to a gravitational anomaly caused by the ocean raising near the equator, not everywhere. The whole point was that it was "going up in one place and down in another". That's the way gravitational anomalies are formed. If the water is the same elevation all over, the gravity field would certainly change, but change by a scalar amount everywhere, hence no anomaly (neglecting the very long wavelength effect of the missing ice in the ice caps, which is where the water would have to come from). They thought it was from changing long period ocean flow patterns, causing the water surface to "go up in one place and down in another". NOT raising the whole level of the oceans.
-- If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide. -Ghandi
What am I supposed to do?
by
Inexile2002
·
· Score: 2
Seriously. This is cool in a totally irrelevant way, but what the hell am I supposed to do with this information? Bring it up at cocktail parties so that people's blank stares get even blanker? Should I worry about this? Is there some sort of website I can visit for day to day fluctuations? Is there something I can do to stop it, or speed it up (and which one am I supposed to want)?
I'm serious here! WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THIS INFORMATION?!? I feel like this should be huge or something but I just don't have any kind of context for this. I'm just going to act like I didn't read this article, and maybe get back to work.
I think I need a drink, I'm leaving early today.
Re:What am I supposed to do?
by
alchemist68
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· Score: 0
There is something you can do to stop this, IN RELATION TO YOU! Killing yourself by any method will make this whole gravity thing irrelevant to you since your consciousness will cease to exist. Space-time will no longer plague your consciousness, everything will be irrelevant, your life, your ideas, your past, your existence. This whole SPACE-TIME thing can be CURED in one fell swoop - BANG! A one-way trip to the BIG BLACK VOID! See? Simple, isn't it?
Re:What am I supposed to do?
by
aardvaark
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· Score: 2
Don't worry about it, seriously. There are much stranger things about the Earth than this.
For instance, the Earth's gravitational field takes a big dip right over India. Why? Hell if anybody knows besides "there's a density anomaly in the mantle under India". The magnetic poles of the earth flip every tens of millions of years or so.
I can drone on for a while if you want, but I think you get the picture.
The whole thing is interesting to geophysicists, but it doesn't do anything to effect everyday life.
Feel safe. Go back to coding or whatever. Have a beer.
-- If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide. -Ghandi
Re:What am I supposed to do?
by
Inexile2002
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· Score: 2
I didn't so much feel threatened as just unable to file it anywhere. I had this convenient mental file system that I spent years tweaking, and never realized I didn't have a subdirectory in there somewhere for "Totally Random Facts About Changes In Planetary Gravity that are Not Connected To Anything".
Is binge drinking sort of a hard re-boot for the brain? Does excessive beer equal ctrl-alt-delete in a neural sense? I'll tell you tomorrow.
Don't worry? It doesn't affect everyday life? Are you crazy?
When Jerry Bruckheimer realizes that the Earth's magnetic field flips back and forth, he going to make a movie about this. You know, impending doom for all mankind, blah, blah, blah. The only way to stop this is to detonate a nuclear device. But it has to be at the core-mantle boundary! That's like 2900 km down! He'll try to get Bruce Willis to drill the hole, but Bruce's character is dead! So what will we get? Yup, Ben Affleck in the leading role! And he's got to drill 2900 km not some easy 800 ft. Do you realize how long the movie is going to be? With Affleck on the screen the entire time?
Then your wife or gf is going to say that you both have to see this latest movie with *sigh* Ben Affleck.
But if you know geophysics, you could tell her why the premise is total b.s. It may be the only way out of this bad situation.
Learn Geophysics! Avoid Ben Affleck!
Re:What am I supposed to do?
by
aardvaark
·
· Score: 2
NO! If more people learn geophysics I'll never get a job!
As far as the movie B.S. goes, how about something like "Honey, at those temperatures and pressures, diamonds flow like plastic. I don't think those steel drill bits would do the trick."?
-- If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide. -Ghandi
You're right. Everybody knows the earth is flat. otherwise, what would keep the water from falling off at the bottom?
-- Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
Why such irresponsible submissals?
by
Wylfing
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· Score: 1
This is utterly rediculous. The article doesn't say "it is assumed changes in ocean levels are responsible".
The article says this:
Cox and his colleague, Benjamin Chao of Goddard, were at first baffled by the sudden reversal and flattening of the gravity field. They considered that ice melting at the poles and raising the overall sea level could be the culprit. Calculations showed, however, that "you would have to drop a 10-by-10-by-5-kilometer cube of it into the ocean every year for the past five years." Separate measurements of sea surface height from NASA's TOPEX/Poseidon mission don't support this scenario.
What are you, comprehension-impaired?
-- Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
Re:Why such irresponsible submissals?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
After than that, near the end of the article, it says that Cox and Chao are almost certain that oceans are the cause.
Nope, it flows to the equator
by
sterno
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· Score: 3, Informative
Since the earth is spinning, the water tends to be forced to the equator by centrifugal force (although I think more correctly it's centripedal force, but whatever). So no matter where the water comes from, it will tend to flow to the equator.
Actually one likely side-effect of long term global warming is, ironically, an ice age. The water moves to the equator, and this causes the earth to spin slightly slower. The side-effect being that this cools the earth. I forget exactly why this is because I learned it in high school physics which was just over a decade ago.
--
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Re:Nope, it flows to the equator
by
God!+Awful
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· Score: 4, Informative
Since the earth is spinning, the water tends to be forced to the equator by centrifugal force (although I think more correctly it's centripedal force, but whatever).
IMHO, high school physics teachers really dropped the ball in explaining this one. A whole generation of high school graduates is confused about centrifugal vs. centripedal.
A body that is spinning around an axis or orbiting around point must be under continual force. Otherwise, they would simply fly off in a straight line at a tangent to the curve. This is the centripedal force. The centrifugal force is a "pseudo force", which means that it only exists in a non-intertial frame of reference.
Basically, what happens is that when you accelerate (whether in a straight line or in a circle), your inertia feels like a force in your frame of reference. When you sit in a moving car, from your point of view you feel like you are sitting still and the car is moving. We know that when an object is at rest, the forces on it are balanced. Therefore, in your frame of reference you feel a pseudo force which balances out the force that is being applied on the car. The pseudo force is really just the effect of your inertia.
So how does this apply to the water? Well, everything on Earth has inertia, and this inertia wants to keep it going in a straight line, even though the Earth is rotating. Solid objects, such as humans are obviously kept in place by simple static friction and wind resistance. Water and air are more mobile and they are less subject to friction (although they are still very subject to air/water pressure). That is the main reason why wind and ocean currents are very obvious whereas continental drift takes centuries.
So in reality, it is the inertia of the water that makes it more buoyant at the equator. The water at the equator is spinning faster than the water at the poles, so it is slightly less subject to gravity. Therefore it bulges out, "making room" for some extra water from the poles to move towards the equator.
And if this is the case no matter how minute the gravity change is how does it affect the calculations that scientist use to determine if an Asteroid will hit us on some future date.
A reference on leap seconds
by
Adam+J.+Richter
·
· Score: 5, Informative
The earth's rotation is slowing anyway. This is the reason that they insert those "leap seconds" every few years to compensate
for the lost time.
At first, I did not believe that such a small
change could account for the leap seconds, but
you're right
:
Through the use of ancient observations of eclipses, it is
possible to determine the average deceleration of the Earth to be roughly 1.4 milliseconds per day per century.
[...] Over the course of one year, the difference accumulates to almost one second, which is compensated by the insertion of a leap
second into the scale of UTC with a current regularity of a little less than once per year. Other factors also affect the Earth, some in unpredictable
ways, so that it is necessary to monitor the Earth's rotation continuously.
In order to keep the cumulative difference in UT1-UTC less than 0.9 seconds, a leap second is added to the atomic time to decrease the difference
between the two. This leap second can be either positive or negative depending on the Earth's rotation. Since the first leap second in 1972, all leap
seconds have been positive and there were 22 leap seconds in the 27 years to January, 1999. This pattern reflects the general slowing trend of the
Earth due to tidal braking.
Re:A reference on leap seconds
by
j_w_d
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Based on this information, if the earth loses about 1 second every year, and given: 60 secs/min *60 min/hr *24 hrs/day, there are 86,400 seconds in a day. It follows then that in 86,400 years, the earth stops and starts turning backwards. Obviously this has to be the explanation for geomagnetic reversals. The earth as a washing machine.
-- ------
The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
Re:A reference on leap seconds
by
malIgna
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· Score: 1
I don't think so. Your math seems to be flawed.
Since there are 86,400 seconds in a day and we gain (in effect) a second every year, it would take 86,400 * 365 years before the earth stops rotating. So, roughly 31,536,000 years from now. I think.
-- Nothing to see here, move along.
Correllation is not Causation!
by
Orne
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· Score: 1
This is the most often forgotten rule in data mining: correllation is not causation!
Fact: Small amounts of pollution create small changes in water density. Conjecture: Large amounts of pollution MIGHT be affecting ocean currents, though we don't know how much pollution, what type it is, or the concentrations involved... Fact: Iron and other metals affect magnetic fields. Fact: Iron is largely distributed in the ocean in small concentrations Conjecture: Changes in water currents can affect global magnetic fields, because of the distributed metals. Conclusion: The gravity characteristics of the planet MUST be changing because of pollution!
Get real!
Same argument in global warming. Why is it that all of the temperature records for the northern hemisphere were set BEFORE the onset of the industrial revolution? Maybe because there are MANY more factors involved in temperature shifts than simply blaming "industrial pollution", and hamstringing the world's economy in the process...
Re:Correllation is not Causation!
by
Jonny+Ringo
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· Score: 2
Find out this and more in,
Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard
Re:Correllation is not Causation!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Yup, agreed. Probably after years of assuming constant gravity someone just went and measured it.
Re:Correllation is not Causation!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
This has absolutely no scientific basis, nor any evidence whatsoever. It just popped into my head like a Stay-puft marshmallow man. When a fluid is released in a zero-G environment, it wobbles along a couple of axes for a long time before finally stabilizing. You know, stretching one way, then the other... Rock and presumably metal, in sufficiently high pressures, can act as fluids. Maybe the earth has been "wobbling" ever since its creation 4.5 billion years ago, but due to its mass is doing so veeeeeery slowly. I know, there are much simpler and better explanations, but it makes for kind of a neat mental image, doesn't it?
This is just a case of the general dynamics of the earth's e-field. Its not a set entity with a perfectly de3fined value. The field is very dynamic and ever changing.
-- I once shot a man who posted too many, "Imagine a beowulf cluster of these"
yes
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Not only are they related, but they're exactly the same story.
Funny. If this continues indefinitely, all those people who claimed the world was flat were true visionaries way ahead of their time. Who'da thought that?!
Didn't we recently have a story about Boeing trying to duplicate the research of a Russian physicist who claimed to be able to reduce gravity by about 2 percent? I know I read about it on Janes a few days ago.
Since no one claim to understand how or why his approach works (if it does), maybe this is an unexpected and unnoticed side effect?
First Law: Actions Have Consequences
Re:It's that Russian...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
It took centuries for explorers to convince the world that the earth was round. Now it's flat again. What are we supposed to teach our children?
--
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda :wq
I'm just an AC
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
So nobody cares, but the previous slashdot story is reporting the same phenomenon in a different way. If you actually read the previous article, it says the shape of the earth is measured by variations in the gravitational field. That's exactly the same thing as this article. QED.
I read an article in Science News a while back that talked about a measurable slowing of the rotation of the Earth caused by the widespread damming of waterways. Holding so much water at higher altitude causes the Earth's rotation to slow slightly (conservation of angular momentum).
-- Look, it's trying to think - Albert Rosenfield
That dudes a few baskets short of a picnic.
by
Unknown+Poltroon
·
· Score: 1
Really. ANd what they are expecting to happen is a MAGNETIC pole shift, not the whole crust thing happening.
-- All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Re:Fatter or Flatter, you freaking idiot?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
It's the same freaking thing, you freaking idiot! Get a freaking balloon, you freaking idiot! Now squish the freaking balloon with your hands, you freaking idiot! It's freaking flatter, isn't it, you freaking idiot? If not, you forgot to freaking blow it up first, you freaking idiot! Now, re-orient the freaking balloon so that instead of being on the freaking sides, your freaking hands are at the freaking top and bottom, you freaking idiot! It's freaking fatter horizontally, isn't it, you freaking idiot? Do you get the freaking point now, you freaking idiot? Good, you freaking idiot.
The Scientist Who Cried 'The Sky Is Falling!!!'
by
guttentag
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· Score: 2
In fact it turns out that the gravitational pull of the earth is changing such that when California is finally shaken loose by the San Andreas fault it will simply float off into the sky. The exact opposite of the sky falling. Also, it turns out that Columbus was wrong (the Earth is getting flatter, which implies it must have been significantly flat already) but happened to be in the right century at the right time.
In other news, the End of the World (TM) has been rescheduled for 2880 (no indication yet of whether it will still occur in February of that year).
I'm getting a little tired of these scientist pranks, but I'm waiting for Greenpeace to sue McDonald's over the Earth's newfound obesity.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Excursion
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Funny
Well, the great thing about the Excursion is that even if the water levels do rise a few feet where you live you'll still be able to drive!! While all of the supposedly "Enviromentally Friendly" cars will be sitting there in pools rusting and leaking toxic stuff into the environment.
Now who's more enviromentially concious, eh?
Re:Excursion
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
i will enjoy laughing at the lot of you while paddling my kayak through the waterworld of the future.
(* Could there be any connection with the earth's magnetic poles looking like they're going to flip soon? *)
There is some speculation that nuclear forces in the deep center that power the magnetic fields may be on their last leg, and that they might run out any time now, exposing the earth to deadly cosmic rays by lowering the magnetic "sheild" that surrounds the planet.
However, the consensus is that we have another billion+ years before that happens.
Besides, the Sun is gonna heat up soon anyhow.
The Earth is in its late 50's WRT useful lifespan. Lets just hope it does not want to retire until we do (or we move off).
Only if we can find four really really big elephants, and a REALLY big turtle. (:
-- Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
Re:More gravity ????????
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooo More fluid means a larger equitorial bulge, as mass there looses a bit of weight !! Centripital force, ya know...
The PR team responsible for the upcoming adaptation of Solaris awoke to find hundreds of nubile young men and women throwing money and drugs at them, found out that they'd won the Nobel Prize For Just Being You, and bankrupted Vegas in a 24-hour solid winning streak. .
-- --
Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
The sky is falling, the sky is falling.
by
johnthorensen
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· Score: 1
The submitter of this article notes that it could be because of rising ocean levels, but doesn't mention that the article also says this is unlikely. He also doesn't even mention the other, more LIKELY causes that the article reports.
Quit playing chicken little. It's irresponsible, and clouds the issues surrounding our planet's health.
I thought I read a while back that the Earth was overdue (by 35k years or something like that) for a swap in the magnetic poles. Could this be simply part of the process for that to occur? I took college physics, but I was always hazy on the magnetic field stuff.
This article reminds me of some of the posters my teacher had on his wall. They were old magazine clippings, one of them was one of nixon resigning, and one of the other articles on the front page was how "Mother Earth is Losing a Bit of her Pull" and was about how gravity is decreasing and becoming more toward the equator over the years. Seems crap like this is always interesting to some people.
--
$ make love
make: don't know how to make love. Stop
Stop!
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
I can't take the pressure! First my girlfriend wants me to find her G-Spot and now you want me to find earth's zero-G-Spot. Enough already!
Re:DUPLICATE - posted at 8:54AM today by michael
by
wheany
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· Score: 1
And on the front page, with just one story in between. This has to be a record...
Pangea? Not! Yes of course the 'continents' were at one time joined into a 'single' landmass, but the scientists NEVER take into account that the Earth was SMALLER back then.
We've always known the Earth gains mass every second of its existence. That means it's gotten 'bigger' and 'hotter' every second of its existence.
At some point, a planete reaches a certain size in which it's core will begin to generate heat. Which in turn may cause sea-floor-spreading, which causes all kinds of problems.
Sound like common sense doesn't it?
Then why do all the pictures of 'pangea' show a single 'super continent' and a single 'ocean' covering the rest of the globe? Thats Crazy!
Couldn't it just be that the earth is getting fatter?
Did anyone read the Discover article about
by
Rooked_One
·
· Score: 1
Did anyone read the Discover article about someguy who went on to say the center of the earth was actually a ball of uranium? It would explain for the magnetic properties of the earth. I'm not sure if it relates to this in any way but maybe it will spark something.
Has anyone considered that perhaps this is the Earths natural course? I mean, how long have scientists been monitoring this planet? The earth has been around for millions of years, how do we know that this hasn't happened before?
(I ask the same question of global warming)
Just my $.02
... you're a troll. In the previous thread on the same topic, you wrote something similar and people told you that you were being foolish. Thanks for proving, beyond any reasonable doubt, what your real intent is.
I'm not wearing any pants.
by
banal+avenger
·
· Score: 1
This makes me wonder (sorry, I realize I'm slightly off topic here), what would the world do if a sudden, catastrophic change in some gravitational field caused the length of years and days to change? Personally, I think that would suck to have to replace everything that deals with time.
NO, Read the Article!
by
mrfunnypants
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
I really suggest you read the article before sprouting this nonsense. A short cut from the article if you can understand: "They considered that ice melting at the poles and raising the overall sea level could be the culprit. Calculations showed, however, that "you would have to drop a 10-by-10-by-5-kilometer cube of it into the ocean every year for the past five years." Separate measurements of sea surface height from NASA's TOPEX/Poseidon mission don't support this scenario"
They are talking about Ocean currents causing this effect not global warming which was completely ignored by slashdot which I am not surprised considering they will post any story to push their political agenda. Read the article and think before you write such crap. Thanks
-- "Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance"
-Confucius
very interesting/weird theory, can you provide any reasonably authorative links i would like to know more?
i would like to read more about this, what sort of timescale would this happen on? I cannot imagine it would be very could for the ecosystem. would we be more likely to be engulfed by the sun, hit by an asteroid or some other armegeddon before this happened?
In the case of Earth and the sun, I have no idea of the timescales involved.
http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~raskka/tidallocking. ht m
Hit google for "tital locking" and "spin-orbit locking", and you'll probably find a lot more.
--
DNA just wants to be free...
Columbus _was_ wrong
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
> Also, it turns out that Columbus was wrong
Actually Columbus was wrong, but most people don't seem to know this because his actual claims have been replaced by sucessful ones.
The size of the Earth at 24000 miles around was first established in around 450BC. In 170AD Ptolemy III published his Geograpica containing thousands of places and giving them locations based on a latitude and longitude of a 24000 mile circumpherence.
When trade with the Far East was important and very profitable it was know that it was 13000 miles to China and thus a westward voyage was 11000 miles, an imposibility.
Columbus claimed that his calculations showed the Earth to have a circumpherence of 16000 miles and thus it was only 5000 miles westward to China. He was laughed at.
The chance of profit from this direction of trade was so great that eventually he managed to convince the King of Spain, who had more money than sense, to fund this folly.
When Columbus arrived in the Caribbean he was convinced that he had sailed past China and he called the natives 'Indians' based on his belief that he was in the East Indies. Even on subsequent voyages he still claimed that it was the east indies he went to dispite all the evidence.
Actually its pretty scary...
by
Evil+Pete
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
There appears to be a movement of a huge mass from the poles to the equator over the last 4 years. The article describes how they excluded the obvious culprits: melting ice, earth movements, atmosphere etc. And finally concluded that it is related to ocean circulation. Now that gives me the creeps!
Why the creeps? Because ocean circulation changes can happen relatively quickly and are implicated in the starting / stopping of ice ages. They are crucial indicators for climate change. And when the ocean circulation changes there is nothing humans can do about it.
Hopefully it either isn't the oceans or if it is it wont have a serious effect (dont believe my own words here... but it sounds comforting). Whatever, this requires some serious investigation, just hope they got it wrong.
-- Bitter and proud of it.
Re:Actually its pretty scary...
by
Radish03
·
· Score: 1
If nobody noiced...there is a story in the Science section, only 2 stories down from this one in fact, which states that the Earth is indeed getting fatter. Is it coincidence that this story came out right after that one?
Re:Actually its pretty scary...
by
Beliskner
·
· Score: 2
Or maybe it's an early indicator of a gravitational field reversal, or additional buffeting of the Earth's magnetic field by increased solar winds from the peak solar cycle?
-- A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
Re:Actually its pretty scary...
by
zCyl
·
· Score: 2
It would be folly for us to expect our planet's climate to stay the way it is forever. For as long as we can look back the climate has been wildly fluctuating. However, if you are alive now, I can guarantee you that your ancestors survived the last ice age, and they managed to do it without any notable industry, technology, or global society.
Don't panic yet. Life is resilient and humans are resilient.
Given enough time, we'll eventually develop the technology to fix our climate where we like it. (Which will probably spark heated debates about where to set the global thermostat.) And in the interim, there's no good reason to panic.
Re:Actually its pretty scary...
by
Debillitatus
·
· Score: 2
The article describes how they excluded the obvious culprits: melting ice, earth movements, atmosphere etc. And finally concluded that it is related to ocean circulation. Now that gives me the creeps!
Why the creeps? Because ocean circulation changes can happen relatively quickly and are implicated in the starting / stopping of ice ages. They are crucial indicators for climate change. And when the ocean circulation changes there is nothing humans can do about it.
Why are you more worried about ocean circulation than melting ice, atmoshperic changes, etc.? We can't do shite about any of them...
--
Come on, give it up, that's
Re:Actually its pretty scary...
by
Brainchild
·
· Score: 2, Funny
maybe it's an early indicator of a gravitational field reversal
I sure hope not. Wouldn't want to see everything on the surface of the planet suddenly fly off into space....
--
:: "I am non-refutable." --Enik the Altrusian::
Re:Actually its pretty scary...
by
Nehemiah+S.
·
· Score: 2
And when the ocean circulation changes there is nothing humans can do about it.
I have to disagree here. There has to be something we can do about it- it may be expensive, it may require a hell of a lot of research and maybe some geo-engineering with 100 megaton bombs or other "long levers", but imho it seems silly to think that we can be currently unconsciously changing the world's climate on one hand (greenhouse effect) and yet be completely unable to consciously change it back.
-- ... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be where the eye of his telescope has already been
Huh. I thought that was a line that was only used in Hollywood. Not only that, but it is so unbelievable that a real scientist would ever say such a phrase that I have to assume that this isn't real. Either this is an elaborate hoax, or this is all a Hollywood movie that has been kept secret from us for all these years, a la The Truman Show. Whichever, my advice is to "Hold on to your butts."
For those who were wondering, it's a joke.
--
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
I don't claim to even be able to post on this, but is it possible that the simple retention of water, i.e. hydrogen bonds, IN MASSIVE amounts, that are happening in the oceans could be the cause of this. If you think of unfrozen water in space, doesn't it form sphere's. And wouldn't it ossilate on the pushing and pulling happening on all the impurities of the water, i.e. not strick hydrogen or oxygen, but the stuff it bounces off of. Seems the ocean is pretty unpure these days.
or is that just silly. I'm stupid nevermind..
-- "What do you do with the mad that you feel when you feel so mad you could bite?" - Mister Rogers
Sigh...globals warming AGAIN???
by
Dexter+Sinister
·
· Score: 1
No Hemos...not changes in ocean levels, only maybe changes in ocean currents. Read the 5th to last paragraph of the article. All the other theories are quickly followed by a "but we don't know for sure". The theory in the 5th to last paragraph even has a name, and has apparently been known about for awhile.
And boy aren't these guys brilliant: "We have a strong suspicion that it's in the ocean," Cox said.
Yeah of course its the oceans, moron. Earth's oceans give us all our oxygen and regulate the global temperatures. They are liquid and therefore can quickly redistribute their mass. Blah blah blah.
Hello? Hello? Does the lack of intellectual rigor in such articles bother anyone but me?
ocean gravity
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
this is interesting. discover magazine just published an article mentioning how increasing melt rates of arctic ice is creating a huge "lake" of freshwater in the north atlantic. this freshwater is consequently messing up the north atlantic deep water current, the phenomenon that is responsible in a large part for the gulf stream. the cold, less-dense freshwater does not sink as deep as the cold, dense saltwater that is normally there. this freshwater not sinking then prevents the warm waters from the south from flowing up north. normally, the cold saltwater would sink more than a mile down and the warm saltwater would flow in over top, cool, sink, etc... like i said, the freshwater doesn't sink as far, thus not allowing the warm saltwater to flow as far north, because there is no room for it. any ways, what im getting at is that all that dense heavy saltwater is now stuck farther south, near the equator, instead of being spread out over the whole north atlantic. i would think that all that extra weight down there could be enough to affect the earth's gravitational field. just a thought.
3 groups of 3 in cycles of 10? 4 groups of 4 in cycles of 12?
this concept was the first time i was given an oppertunity to truely visualize what a magnetic field was. running two models in your head is quite the learning experience.
i like the third model the best
Re:Zetatalk
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Would you care to explain?
3 groups of 3 in cycles of 10?
4 groups of 4 in cycles of 12?
5 groups of 5 in cycles of 20?
6 groups of 6 in cycles of 180?
7 groups of 7 in cycles of 1260?
10 - 10 fingers on two hands?
12 - magic number?
20 - 10 fingers + 10 toes?
180 - 180 degrees to turn around?
1260 = 12 * 100 + 60 magic number times 10 fingers times 10 toes + magic sumerian number
1260 * 3 = 3780 = 60 x 60 + 180 = 60 x 60 + 3 * 60 (group of 3)
You know, Turd, back when Microsoft had these roadshows where they wanted to show off some New Old Technology and when there was still DEC around? I went to one of these events and I told the people from Digital that I don't give a shit about Windows NT and I wanted to see OpenVMS for Alpha... They laughed, took me to a back room and we spent hours playing with a spanking new Alpha with OpenVMS on it.
Um, that's never been proven. The only forces that have been unified are the electric and magnetic (well, okay, that happened in the 19th century, nothing big, we call it electromagnetism) and the weak nuclear force (electroweak force). Furthermore, gravity has never been given a solid theoretical basis. The graviton is a proposed boson which has never been shown to actually exist (a boson is a force carrying particle -- the strong nuclear force uses the gluon, the weak nuclear force uses the W and Z bosons, and electromagnetism uses the photon). The only theoretical basis we really have to explain quantum gravitational interactions are the string theories, which require 11 dimensions to work (and as mathematically "beautiful" these theories might be, they are ridiculously complicated). Well, that's all.
- Entropix
-- I know Karate, Kung Fu, and 47 other dangerous words!
POLE SHIFT
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Funny
This is the Pole Shift that the Zeta's & others have been warning of since 1995.
Think it's just a coincidence that all the MONEY is disappearing? I spoke with a Ph.D who told me he had firsthand knowledge of this event.
Forget coding, start thinking about survival. You will need to be above 2,100 feet and underground. 90% fatality is predicted.
This is not a joke, you fucks, I am 100% serious.Get off the computers and look around you-- winds are picking up across the globe-- in the months ahead we will experience a societal meltdown as the planetary body causing the shift becomes visible to amateur scopes.
Get ready, stary calm, and remember, reincarnation is your best bet. Life doesn't just stop after you pass on.
Stay cool, & of COURSE verify all this & think for yourself.
ver.
this has already been posted
by
lab16
·
· Score: 1
look at the science page for "the earth is getting fatter"
Re:Slower rotation means....
by
fractaltiger
·
· Score: 2
will the rotation of the earth slow, even a tiny amount, but enough that we have to adjust time in a few years?
I could certainly use sleeping in a 36 hour day... Too bad daylight will last longer too;) and latenite coding will be overwhelmingly long.
But by then, so many years will have passed that computers will be the ones coding and passing out to keep us alive, à la Matrix
"The cause has yet to be determined, but it is assumed changes in ocean levels are responsible."
Sounds more like an effect of the Earth getting flatter to me...
so, is it weaker or stronger at the equator?
by
Anderlan
·
· Score: 1
The submission says stronger, but I honestly can't
tell from this article. It only says the 'field' is
getting flatter.
There are lots of ways to visualize a force field.
Does the 'flatter' field with more distance (in the
field visualization, not the earth now) from the
center at the equator mean a greater intensity, or
less?
I would think that is the case, but the way the
article describes whats happening to the earth,
geometrically, I would think the opposite. (I would
also be saying the submitter is mistaken when he
says the the field is getting "stronger at the
equator.")
Tangentially, in basic engineering core physics,
in order to get good numbers in lab, you
learn that g is smaller at lower latitudes (closer
to the equator) because of, presumably, centrifugal
force due to the rotation of the earth, and increased distance to the center of the earth (because the earth is flattened, because of the
centrifugal force already mentioned).
(9.81something m/s^2 at 90 degrees, 9.79something
at 0 degrees, were the numbers I was routinely
given, and they worked well (well, the number
for my latitude, within that range, worked well.).)
This is probably a relatively huge and constant variation, independent of everything talked about in the article, but I just thought I would mention
it as a way the variable gravitational field
is known to many readers here, and the postulations
developed to explain the variation.
Secondly, the article says that, post glacially
(in this current era),
ice shelfs are
decreasing, letting the crust rise at the poles.
So, postglacially, the distance from the center of
the earth at the poles is increasing, and the amount of mass under a person at the poles is decreasing (mountains of ice are leaving the area,
melting, and distributing themselves more evenly).
Both of those things would make the gravity at the poles *decrease*.
Now, supposing that a postglacial decrease in polar
gravity corresponds to an increase everywhere else,
then a *reverse* of the postglacial trend would
mean a *decrease* of gravity at the equator, the
opposite of the what the submission, and the
articles "flattening field" visualization might
indicate.
Which is it? I dunno.
To add to this confusion, does the graphic at the
top of the article indicate the delta of the movement
of the field-as-a-surrounding-surface (flattening field) or the delta of the force itself? I mean,
an arrow away from the earth, as seen on the
articles graphic at the equators, seems to indicate a
lessening in gravity, not an increase, again
running counter to the submission's statement. And
vice versa at the poles. Oy.
-- KLAATU, BORADA, NIh*ahem*
Random thoughts/gibberish?
by
MoogMan
·
· Score: 1
Well, the earth isnt going to be a static shape now is it... Its been twisted and pulled ever since it was born (I blame the parents) so its obviously gonna be oscillating in density.
It could be a shift of denser material near the core moving around therefore causing the shift of gravity... Or maybe a black hole is creeping towards us; we'll never know until the whole world starts putting on weight... Hmm didnt I see some reports of obesity rates rising exponentially on bbc news? Or maybe the world obesity weights rising would cause the earths gravity field to get wider in the middle.
Something like this also happens with EM fields as well - every 500x10^? years, the poles swap over. Could it be the same thing happening with gravity fields?
do u rember that spinning around trick?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Spinning around in the gym, when u pull you legs in you go faster extending them, makes u go slower.
And now for the earth? is it gona spin slower?
Making our 24H rotation system obsolete? Hotter in the days, colder at nights.
hope im wrong in this, but it sure makes me dizzy.
yt ac.
Only the Ice at the south pole
by
oliverthered
·
· Score: 2
Only the Ice at the south pole!!! the Ice at the north pole is floating, mealting it won't change the sea level. You can try this out at home with an ice cube and a glass of water.
Put some water into the glass. Then put an ice cube in the glass. Mark the water level at the side of the glass. Wait for the ice cube to mealt. Check the water level in the glass!
-- thank God the internet isn't a human right.
You both have your math wrong
by
Adam+J.+Richter
·
· Score: 2
"we gain (in effect) a second every year..."
That sentence can mean many different things. It is true that the our days are curerntly slightly
shorter than 86,400 seconds, and 365 times that difference adds up to about one second, but that has nothing to do with whether the days are now getting longer or shorter. The duration of one
rotation of the Earth on its axis is not getting shorter by one second every
year. It is getting longer by 1.4 milliseconds
every century, and I would guess that that deceleration will be weaker as the Earth slows down and the moon gets farther away.
Slight correction to my own posting
by
Adam+J.+Richter
·
· Score: 2
I wrote: "It is true that the our days are curerntly slightly shorter than 86,400 seconds [...]". I meant longer. The Earth's rotation as decelerated a bit since 1820, not accellerated. Sorry for any confusion.
Curious as how this affects space launches in general. Common sense would dictate that if the earth is spinning slower then it must take less energy to put a payload in space. Yes, I realize that we're talking about fractions of a second and all... but to in NASA who's trying to crunch the numbers, would this leader to cheaper launches (even if it is $10...)
There is evidence in the geologic record that the earth's magnetic field has actually switched polarity. This switch seems to take place about every 2000 years. It's really gonna suck when it collapses and we are bombarded by solar radiation until it switches back. Does walmart sell radiation suits?
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe they'll settle for a flat gravitational field?
***
This is my Sig. This is my Glock, this is my Walther, and this is my Beretta.
Any questions?
H Yep, it's a dup.
--Shemnon
Shouldn't the opposite be happening? Global Warming is being blamed for the melting of the polar caps, if that's the case then shouldn't the gravitational field be even more round?
Yo mamma so big that... n/m
Aren't we past due for the poles to flip?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Judging by the diagram, this means that the Earth is getting shorter and fatter. Is this news? Thats what happens when you get older...
Ain't that what they call menopause?
This is fantastic news for Cowboy Neal.
Cool! I can loose weight not by dieting, but by just moving further north!
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Does this mean eventually we'll have a "sweet spot", like what was shown on Enterprise? Will we be able to go the say, the Artic Circle, and push off a mountain and experience some zero-G fun? And like, how will the climates and enviroments of places further from the equaitor alter? This sounds interesting, yet scary at the same time.
--Reverend Raven
Desperate days demand dire deeds.
Has anyone tried correlating the geographical distribution of high-density PC populations with the more intense regions of gravitational pull?
That's weird because I just saw a news story yesterday that the Earth is getting FATTER at the equator, due to movement of some magma mass or something. You'd figure gravity would be slightly less as a result. It already bulges out at the equator anyhow.
It must be really important if it gets posted twice, maybe this time I should read the article...
Could observing change in the gravitational field help in determining what exactly is gravity?
I mean, sometimes it's easier to observe something which have variable input-output then observing something which is constant. At least when you have some control over the input/outpout part.
But if they can manage to determine exactly what input on earth has changed which could impact gravity, could it help them find what is gravity? Any physicist out there more knowledegable then me? (There sure is, I'm not even a physicist...)
I'd rather be sailing...
Time to break out that push up bra
I've been blaming my weight gain on candy bars and junk food. What a relief to find out it's actually just more gravity!
And maybe the shrinking waistband in all my pants is due somehow to the warping effect the extra gravity is having on space?
... if you want to lose weight, keep moving north =) side benefit: weaker field near the poles means you are somewhat less likely to get nailed by de-orbiting satellites - natural or otherwise.
when it rains, it gets real soggy. when it pours, i'm under the tap just _waiting_ for the joy
I expect so.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Why does this issue remind me of the Simpsons ep. where Homer puts on weight so he can work from home?
All we need for this planet now is a frilly dress, a towel rank to hold the excess 'girth'... and a large gas filled container to 'plug'.
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
-foxxz
I wonder if this is perhaps due to the ongoing mettling of mankind with Nature? Perhaps are great steel mills, automobiles, lead paints, and electromagnetic communications devices are finally taking their toll.
Just remember that if this trend continues, we may end up destroying one of the things that make human civilization possible (compasses). In that case, we'll either be wiped out or have to start again from scratch. Come to think of it, maybe the Universe would be better off without us.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
"There's that word again, heavy. Is there a problem with the Earth's gravitational pull?"
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
This really is excellent news for Linux and Open Source software. Bravo!
Does this mean that I haven't been really losing weight?
If the earth's gravitational field has 'flattened out' or concentrated more around the equator, that implies that the center of mass has concentrated there - the earth has *Developed* a spare tire, not lost one.
So give me 50,000 more laps around the sun, and no rest breaks!
"So on one hand, honey is an amazingly sophisticated and efficient food source. On the other hand it's bee backwash."
A star or planet or something that is now closer then it was before is tugging at the Earth as it spins, causing it to bulge out towards whatever is pulling at it?
Morphing Software
One possible effect will be all those near misses and potential threats becoming reality.
We'll just reroute power from the warp core to the hull plating. This should create a dampening field. We can then get a sensor lock on it.
What changes in ocean levels? Did this just happen yesterday or something?
Considering that I live at an altitude of 20 feet and one mile from the ocean, I would think I would be one of the first people to know if the ocean level was changing. From what I can tell, the level of the Pacific Ocean is still the same as it was when I was a kid.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I thought earth was getting Fatter.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
Remember, extraordinary claims ...
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
New Scientist also has an article on this, see= ns999 92628
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id
The MSNBC report is misleading - the measurement (by satellites)is of gravity, but the conclusion is about the shape of the planet. The prime suspect, currently, is ocean currents.
My ex-workmate is rather convinced (don't ask me why :))) that changes like this are caused by the NT7 asteroid which, he believes, will shift earth's magnetism that everything will basicly destroy. Yup, he belives it does not hit the earth, it just passes by so that everything gets wicked. He might be almost blind, but he is a hellable coder. So prepare to get extincted!
Does the move to Earths gravitation have to do with an approaching planet?
The BBC has this story which says the planet's also getting fatter.
Are these two stories connected?
I'll be able to float to work in the morning? Or take big moonsteps? Cool!
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
No wonder the Dowsers group that meets in our library has been wandering around in a daze!
Mmmmmm... Bold, yet refreshing!
If you're referring to a differential gravitational attraction similar to that involved in Roche Limit" deformation of orbiting bodies, then no. What you're suggesting implies that the gravitational pull on the equator is significantly stronger than that on the polar regions. Since gravitational attraction drops off exponentially as the distance between the two bodies increases, that kind of differential pull only occurs when the gravitational bodies are relatively-speaking quite close together.
Perhaps if the moon had suddenly increased in mass a thousand-fold, but not possible due to distant stars or planets.
"So on one hand, honey is an amazingly sophisticated and efficient food source. On the other hand it's bee backwash."
It could be worse, we could be combing Ozone over from areas around the north pole.
It's easy to stand out when the general level of competence is so low.
Now I'm gonna have to go find yet another secret lair!
When you people stop being so nosy?!
That was so bad it was hilarious!
The parent post might not have been all that Funny, but it wasn't Offtopic.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
In related news, officials from North Stonington, CT and Hopkinton, RI have cited their recent border confusion on the "fattening" of the Earth.
~N
So if this change is due to rising ocean, or earth is getting fatter at the equator, won't this affect a whole shitload of other things?:
earth's rotation -> length of day -> amount of axial wobble change -> seasonal azimuth -> earth climate?
And if gravity is higher at the equator - won't this affect time, since time slows down in a higher gravity field?
I'm sure that these changes are all rather insignificant taken separately, but taken together, doesn't this have an impact on accuracy of scientific measurements? Will everything need to be recalibrated?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Seriously. This is cool in a totally irrelevant way, but what the hell am I supposed to do with this information? Bring it up at cocktail parties so that people's blank stares get even blanker? Should I worry about this? Is there some sort of website I can visit for day to day fluctuations? Is there something I can do to stop it, or speed it up (and which one am I supposed to want)?
I'm serious here! WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THIS INFORMATION?!? I feel like this should be huge or something but I just don't have any kind of context for this. I'm just going to act like I didn't read this article, and maybe get back to work.
I think I need a drink, I'm leaving early today.
In a related story, the earth is getting fatter. Growing at the equator. Hmmm, sounds familiar.
I can't beleive how many lame fat jokes I just read. Go /.!
I love the poll to the right of the article.
"What do you think will happen because of this change"
They left out the most important option:
"How the hell would I know? I'm not a scientist I'm some idiot browsing the web instead of doing my job".
.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Maybe this is due to the Earth getting fatter?
rooooar
all this talk about gravity brings me down. and don't bring up friction either, that's a drag.
You're right. Everybody knows the earth is flat. otherwise, what would keep the water from falling off at the bottom?
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
The article says this:
Cox and his colleague, Benjamin Chao of Goddard, were at first baffled by the sudden reversal and flattening of the gravity field. They considered that ice melting at the poles and raising the overall sea level could be the culprit. Calculations showed, however, that "you would have to drop a 10-by-10-by-5-kilometer cube of it into the ocean every year for the past five years." Separate measurements of sea surface height from NASA's TOPEX/Poseidon mission don't support this scenario.
What are you, comprehension-impaired?
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
Since the earth is spinning, the water tends to be forced to the equator by centrifugal force (although I think more correctly it's centripedal force, but whatever). So no matter where the water comes from, it will tend to flow to the equator.
Actually one likely side-effect of long term global warming is, ironically, an ice age. The water moves to the equator, and this causes the earth to spin slightly slower. The side-effect being that this cools the earth. I forget exactly why this is because I learned it in high school physics which was just over a decade ago.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
And if this is the case no matter how minute the gravity change is how does it affect the calculations that scientist use to determine if an Asteroid will hit us on some future date.
Calculations showed, however, that "you would have to drop a 10-by-10-by-5-kilometer cube of it into the ocean every year for the past five years."
well then what about that 53x40miles Iceberg??
At first, I did not believe that such a small change could account for the leap seconds, but you're right :
This is the most often forgotten rule in data mining: correllation is not causation!
Fact: Small amounts of pollution create small changes in water density.
Conjecture: Large amounts of pollution MIGHT be affecting ocean currents, though we don't know how much pollution, what type it is, or the concentrations involved...
Fact: Iron and other metals affect magnetic fields.
Fact: Iron is largely distributed in the ocean in small concentrations
Conjecture: Changes in water currents can affect global magnetic fields, because of the distributed metals.
Conclusion: The gravity characteristics of the planet MUST be changing because of pollution!
Get real!
Same argument in global warming. Why is it that all of the temperature records for the northern hemisphere were set BEFORE the onset of the industrial revolution? Maybe because there are MANY more factors involved in temperature shifts than simply blaming "industrial pollution", and hamstringing the world's economy in the process...
Maybe it's due to those arrows pushing and pulling on the earth like in that photo...
"I bet I'll get blamed for this." --Mayor Quimby
Michael posted this link this morning...
The Earth is getting Fatter
It's the same story, just links to a UK news site instead of MSNBC.
I can understand when you guys miss duplicate stories a few weeks apart, but in the same day?
I have been beginning to bulge out at my equator as well. Maybe this phenomenon is contagious.
If it won't boot, Fsck it!
This has absolutely no scientific basis, nor any evidence whatsoever. It just popped into my head like a Stay-puft marshmallow man. When a fluid is released in a zero-G environment, it wobbles along a couple of axes for a long time before finally stabilizing. You know, stretching one way, then the other... Rock and presumably metal, in sufficiently high pressures, can act as fluids. Maybe the earth has been "wobbling" ever since its creation 4.5 billion years ago, but due to its mass is doing so veeeeeery slowly. I know, there are much simpler and better explanations, but it makes for kind of a neat mental image, doesn't it?
End of lesson. You may press the button.
This is just a case of the general dynamics of the earth's e-field. Its not a set entity with a perfectly de3fined value. The field is very dynamic and ever changing.
I once shot a man who posted too many, "Imagine a beowulf cluster of these"
Not only are they related, but they're exactly the same story.
...I want to be a lardo on workman's comp, just like Dad - Bart Simpson
Funny. If this continues indefinitely, all those people who claimed the world was flat were true visionaries way ahead of their time. Who'da thought that?!
Since no one claim to understand how or why his approach works (if it does), maybe this is an unexpected and unnoticed side effect?
First Law: Actions Have Consequences
I didn't realize I was botehring anybody. I'll stop now.
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
And Leon's getting LARGER!!!!!!!
/. zen: Imagine a Beowulf cluster of Beowulf clusters...
It took centuries for explorers to convince the world that the earth was round. Now it's flat again. What are we supposed to teach our children?
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
So nobody cares, but the previous slashdot story is reporting the same phenomenon in a different way. If you actually read the previous article, it says the shape of the earth is measured by variations in the gravitational field. That's exactly the same thing as this article. QED.
I read an article in Science News a while back that talked about a measurable slowing of the rotation of the Earth caused by the widespread damming of waterways. Holding so much water at higher altitude causes the Earth's rotation to slow slightly (conservation of angular momentum).
Look, it's trying to think - Albert Rosenfield
Really. ANd what they are expecting to happen is a MAGNETIC pole shift, not the whole crust thing happening.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's the same freaking thing, you freaking idiot! Get a freaking balloon, you freaking idiot! Now squish the freaking balloon with your hands, you freaking idiot! It's freaking flatter, isn't it, you freaking idiot? If not, you forgot to freaking blow it up first, you freaking idiot! Now, re-orient the freaking balloon so that instead of being on the freaking sides, your freaking hands are at the freaking top and bottom, you freaking idiot! It's freaking fatter horizontally, isn't it, you freaking idiot? Do you get the freaking point now, you freaking idiot? Good, you freaking idiot.
- Last week, the sky was falling
- Then we found out the scientists were just yanking our chain
- In fact it turns out that the gravitational pull of the earth is changing such that when California is finally shaken loose by the San Andreas fault it will simply float off into the sky. The exact opposite of the sky falling. Also, it turns out that Columbus was wrong (the Earth is getting flatter, which implies it must have been significantly flat already) but happened to be in the right century at the right time.
- In other news, the End of the World (TM) has been rescheduled for 2880 (no indication yet of whether it will still occur in February of that year).
I'm getting a little tired of these scientist pranks, but I'm waiting for Greenpeace to sue McDonald's over the Earth's newfound obesity.This phenomenon can easily be explained in terms of the Yomama effect...
You see, Yo Mama's so fat that when she takes a vacation, the Earth's gravitational field becomes flatter.
~Ben
Mother Earth has hit menopause. Yikes!
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Well, the great thing about the Excursion is that even if the water levels do rise a few feet where you live you'll still be able to drive!! While all of the supposedly "Enviromentally Friendly" cars will be sitting there in pools rusting and leaking toxic stuff into the environment.
Now who's more enviromentially concious, eh?
Could there be any connection with the earth's magnetic poles looking like they're going to flip soon?
http://www.cosmiverse.com/science04110206.html
is this going to be the transforation of the earth into DiscWorld?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooo More fluid means a larger equitorial bulge, as mass there looses a bit of weight !! Centripital force, ya know ...
The PR team responsible for the upcoming adaptation of Solaris awoke to find hundreds of nubile young men and women throwing money and drugs at them, found out that they'd won the Nobel Prize For Just Being You, and bankrupted Vegas in a 24-hour solid winning streak.
.
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
The submitter of this article notes that it could be because of rising ocean levels, but doesn't mention that the article also says this is unlikely. He also doesn't even mention the other, more LIKELY causes that the article reports.
Quit playing chicken little. It's irresponsible, and clouds the issues surrounding our planet's health.
-JT
I thought I read a while back that the Earth was overdue (by 35k years or something like that) for a swap in the magnetic poles. Could this be simply part of the process for that to occur? I took college physics, but I was always hazy on the magnetic field stuff.
-- Hamsterboy
I bet its the centenial migration of underwater dinosaurs in the deep ocean, all moving towards the equator.
paul
This article reminds me of some of the posters my teacher had on his wall. They were old magazine clippings, one of them was one of nixon resigning, and one of the other articles on the front page was how "Mother Earth is Losing a Bit of her Pull" and was about how gravity is decreasing and becoming more toward the equator over the years. Seems crap like this is always interesting to some people.
$ make love
make: don't know how to make love. Stop
I can't take the pressure! First my girlfriend wants me to find her G-Spot and now you want me to find earth's zero-G-Spot. Enough already!
And on the front page, with just one story in between. This has to be a record...
There was a 'bulge' at the equator.
This is the exact same effect.
btw : read this http://www.expanding-earth.org/
Pangea? Not! Yes of course the 'continents' were at one time joined into a 'single' landmass, but the scientists NEVER take into account that the Earth was SMALLER back then.
We've always known the Earth gains mass every second of its existence. That means it's gotten 'bigger' and 'hotter' every second of its existence.
At some point, a planete reaches a certain size in which it's core will begin to generate heat. Which in turn may cause sea-floor-spreading, which causes all kinds of problems.
Sound like common sense doesn't it?
Then why do all the pictures of 'pangea' show a single 'super continent' and a single 'ocean' covering the rest of the globe? Thats Crazy!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Election_c
Couldn't it just be that the earth is getting fatter?
Did anyone read the Discover article about someguy who went on to say the center of the earth was actually a ball of uranium? It would explain for the magnetic properties of the earth. I'm not sure if it relates to this in any way but maybe it will spark something.
Has anyone considered that perhaps this is the Earths natural course? I mean, how long have scientists been monitoring this planet? The earth has been around for millions of years, how do we know that this hasn't happened before? (I ask the same question of global warming) Just my $.02
... you're a troll. In the previous thread on the same topic, you wrote something similar and people told you that you were being foolish. Thanks for proving, beyond any reasonable doubt, what your real intent is.
This makes me wonder (sorry, I realize I'm slightly off topic here), what would the world do if a sudden, catastrophic change in some gravitational field caused the length of years and days to change? Personally, I think that would suck to have to replace everything that deals with time.
I really suggest you read the article before sprouting this nonsense. A short cut from the article if you can understand: "They considered that ice melting at the poles and raising the overall sea level could be the culprit. Calculations showed, however, that "you would have to drop a 10-by-10-by-5-kilometer cube of it into the ocean every year for the past five years." Separate measurements of sea surface height from NASA's TOPEX/Poseidon mission don't support this scenario"
They are talking about Ocean currents causing this effect not global warming which was completely ignored by slashdot which I am not surprised considering they will post any story to push their political agenda. Read the article and think before you write such crap. Thanks
"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance" -Confucius
Actually the Earth is very slowly settling into being tidally locked with the Sun, much like the moon is tidally locked with earth.
Eventually, one side of the Earth will end up facing the Sun constantly. However, it'll take a very long time.
DNA just wants to be free...
> Also, it turns out that Columbus was wrong
Actually Columbus was wrong, but most people don't seem to know this because his actual claims have been replaced by sucessful ones.
The size of the Earth at 24000 miles around was first established in around 450BC. In 170AD Ptolemy III published his Geograpica containing thousands of places and giving them locations based on a latitude and longitude of a 24000 mile circumpherence.
When trade with the Far East was important and very profitable it was know that it was 13000 miles to China and thus a westward voyage was 11000 miles, an imposibility.
Columbus claimed that his calculations showed the Earth to have a circumpherence of 16000 miles and thus it was only 5000 miles westward to China. He was laughed at.
The chance of profit from this direction of trade was so great that eventually he managed to convince the King of Spain, who had more money than sense, to fund this folly.
When Columbus arrived in the Caribbean he was convinced that he had sailed past China and he called the natives 'Indians' based on his belief that he was in the East Indies. Even on subsequent voyages he still claimed that it was the east indies he went to dispite all the evidence.
There appears to be a movement of a huge mass from the poles to the equator over the last 4 years. The article describes how they excluded the obvious culprits: melting ice, earth movements, atmosphere etc. And finally concluded that it is related to ocean circulation. Now that gives me the creeps!
Why the creeps? Because ocean circulation changes can happen relatively quickly and are implicated in the starting / stopping of ice ages. They are crucial indicators for climate change. And when the ocean circulation changes there is nothing humans can do about it.
Hopefully it either isn't the oceans or if it is it wont have a serious effect (dont believe my own words here ... but it sounds comforting). Whatever, this requires some serious investigation, just hope they got it wrong.
Bitter and proud of it.
..the earth will be flat and the flat earthers will say
I told you so!
"Whatever it is, it's big."
Huh. I thought that was a line that was only used in Hollywood. Not only that, but it is so unbelievable that a real scientist would ever say such a phrase that I have to assume that this isn't real. Either this is an elaborate hoax, or this is all a Hollywood movie that has been kept secret from us for all these years, a la The Truman Show. Whichever, my advice is to "Hold on to your butts."
For those who were wondering, it's a joke.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
I don't claim to even be able to post on this, but is it possible that the simple retention of water, i.e. hydrogen bonds, IN MASSIVE amounts, that are happening in the oceans could be the cause of this. If you think of unfrozen water in space, doesn't it form sphere's. And wouldn't it ossilate on the pushing and pulling happening on all the impurities of the water, i.e. not strick hydrogen or oxygen, but the stuff it bounces off of. Seems the ocean is pretty unpure these days.
or is that just silly. I'm stupid nevermind..
"What do you do with the mad that you feel when you feel so mad you could bite?" - Mister Rogers
No Hemos...not changes in ocean levels, only maybe changes in ocean currents. Read the 5th to last paragraph of the article. All the other theories are quickly followed by a "but we don't know for sure". The theory in the 5th to last paragraph even has a name, and has apparently been known about for awhile.
And boy aren't these guys brilliant: "We have a strong suspicion that it's in the ocean," Cox said.
Yeah of course its the oceans, moron. Earth's oceans give us all our oxygen and regulate the global temperatures. They are liquid and therefore can quickly redistribute their mass. Blah blah blah.
Hello? Hello? Does the lack of intellectual rigor in such articles bother anyone but me?
this is interesting. discover magazine just published an article mentioning how increasing melt rates of arctic ice is creating a huge "lake" of freshwater in the north atlantic. this freshwater is consequently messing up the north atlantic deep water current, the phenomenon that is responsible in a large part for the gulf stream. the cold, less-dense freshwater does not sink as deep as the cold, dense saltwater that is normally there. this freshwater not sinking then prevents the warm waters from the south from flowing up north. normally, the cold saltwater would sink more than a mile down and the warm saltwater would flow in over top, cool, sink, etc... like i said, the freshwater doesn't sink as far, thus not allowing the warm saltwater to flow as far north, because there is no room for it. any ways, what im getting at is that all that dense heavy saltwater is now stuck farther south, near the equator, instead of being spread out over the whole north atlantic. i would think that all that extra weight down there could be enough to affect the earth's gravitational field. just a thought.
dormat
According to Nancy Cummings, the official Emissary of the Zeta Reticulans... we are due for the pole shift. You can read all about it on Zetatalk.com
I don't believe in it all that much, but the weather and our government has been acting pretty strange recently, hasn't it?
gravity and magnetism are the same thing... a different manifestation of the same thing
Think it's just a coincidence that all the MONEY is disappearing? I spoke with a Ph.D who told me he had firsthand knowledge of this event.
Forget coding, start thinking about survival. You will need to be above 2,100 feet and underground. 90% fatality is predicted.
This is not a joke, you fucks, I am 100% serious. Get off the computers and look around you-- winds are picking up across the globe-- in the months ahead we will experience a societal meltdown as the planetary body causing the shift becomes visible to amateur scopes.
Get ready, stary calm, and remember, reincarnation is your best bet. Life doesn't just stop after you pass on.
Stay cool, & of COURSE verify all this & think for yourself.
ver.
look at the science page for
"the earth is getting fatter"
I could certainly use sleeping in a 36 hour day... Too bad daylight will last longer too ;) and latenite coding will be overwhelmingly long.
But by then, so many years will have passed that computers will be the ones coding and passing out to keep us alive, à la Matrix
"Wireless : LAN
"The cause has yet to be determined, but it is assumed changes in ocean levels are responsible."
Sounds more like an effect of the Earth getting flatter to me...
There are lots of ways to visualize a force field. Does the 'flatter' field with more distance (in the field visualization, not the earth now) from the center at the equator mean a greater intensity, or less?
I would think that is the case, but the way the article describes whats happening to the earth, geometrically, I would think the opposite. (I would also be saying the submitter is mistaken when he says the the field is getting "stronger at the equator.")
Tangentially, in basic engineering core physics, in order to get good numbers in lab, you learn that g is smaller at lower latitudes (closer to the equator) because of, presumably, centrifugal force due to the rotation of the earth, and increased distance to the center of the earth (because the earth is flattened, because of the centrifugal force already mentioned). (9.81something m/s^2 at 90 degrees, 9.79something at 0 degrees, were the numbers I was routinely given, and they worked well (well, the number for my latitude, within that range, worked well.).) This is probably a relatively huge and constant variation, independent of everything talked about in the article, but I just thought I would mention it as a way the variable gravitational field is known to many readers here, and the postulations developed to explain the variation.
Secondly, the article says that, post glacially (in this current era), ice shelfs are decreasing, letting the crust rise at the poles. So, postglacially, the distance from the center of the earth at the poles is increasing, and the amount of mass under a person at the poles is decreasing (mountains of ice are leaving the area, melting, and distributing themselves more evenly). Both of those things would make the gravity at the poles *decrease*.
Now, supposing that a postglacial decrease in polar gravity corresponds to an increase everywhere else, then a *reverse* of the postglacial trend would mean a *decrease* of gravity at the equator, the opposite of the what the submission, and the articles "flattening field" visualization might indicate.
Which is it? I dunno.
To add to this confusion, does the graphic at the top of the article indicate the delta of the movement of the field-as-a-surrounding-surface (flattening field) or the delta of the force itself? I mean, an arrow away from the earth, as seen on the articles graphic at the equators, seems to indicate a lessening in gravity, not an increase, again running counter to the submission's statement. And vice versa at the poles. Oy.
KLAATU, BORADA, NIh*ahem*
Well, the earth isnt going to be a static shape now is it... Its been twisted and pulled ever since it was born (I blame the parents) so its obviously gonna be oscillating in density.
It could be a shift of denser material near the core moving around therefore causing the shift of gravity... Or maybe a black hole is creeping towards us; we'll never know until the whole world starts putting on weight... Hmm didnt I see some reports of obesity rates rising exponentially on bbc news? Or maybe the world obesity weights rising would cause the earths gravity field to get wider in the middle.
Something like this also happens with EM fields as well - every 500x10^? years, the poles swap over. Could it be the same thing happening with gravity fields?
Spinning around in the gym, when u pull you legs in you go faster extending them, makes u go slower.
And now for the earth? is it gona spin slower?
Making our 24H rotation system obsolete?
Hotter in the days, colder at nights.
hope im wrong in this, but it sure makes me dizzy.
yt
ac.
Only the Ice at the south pole!!!
the Ice at the north pole is floating, mealting it won't change the sea level.
You can try this out at home with an ice cube and a glass of water.
Put some water into the glass.
Then put an ice cube in the glass.
Mark the water level at the side of the glass.
Wait for the ice cube to mealt.
Check the water level in the glass!
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
That sentence can mean many different things. It is true that the our days are curerntly slightly shorter than 86,400 seconds, and 365 times that difference adds up to about one second, but that has nothing to do with whether the days are now getting longer or shorter. The duration of one rotation of the Earth on its axis is not getting shorter by one second every year. It is getting longer by 1.4 milliseconds every century, and I would guess that that deceleration will be weaker as the Earth slows down and the moon gets farther away.
I wrote: "It is true that the our days are curerntly slightly shorter than 86,400 seconds [...]". I meant longer. The Earth's rotation as decelerated a bit since 1820, not accellerated. Sorry for any confusion.
Gotta be El Nino. Gotta be. After all, it's to blame for just about everything else...
Unless it's La Nina. That's to blame for all the other stuff.
Curious as how this affects space launches in general. Common sense would dictate that if the earth is spinning slower then it must take less energy to put a payload in space. Yes, I realize that we're talking about fractions of a second and all... but to in NASA who's trying to crunch the numbers, would this leader to cheaper launches (even if it is $10...)
eh, food for thought...
There is evidence in the geologic record that the earth's magnetic field has actually switched polarity. This switch seems to take place about every 2000 years. It's really gonna suck when it collapses and we are bombarded by solar radiation until it switches back. Does walmart sell radiation suits?