Earth's Core Spins Faster than Earth

Dreamwalkerofyore writes "The New York Times has an article on a recent affirmation that the earth's core rotates faster than the earth proper. From the article: 'Confirming assertions first made in 1996, a team of geophysicists are presenting data in the journal Science today showing that the earth's inner core... spins faster than the rest of the planet. Over a period of 700 to 1,200 years, the inner core appears to make one full extra spin. That extra spin could give scientists information about how the earth generates its magnetic field.'"

Comments

Give my regards to the Earth's core...

[kzinti]

So I'm just wondering: does this delta-omega have anything to do with the fact that the Earth's magnetic field reverses itself every 200,000 years or so? Please begin rampant conjecture and wild speculation. Extra credit to anyone who can credibly bring Roswell or right-wing conspiracies into the discussion. Fnord.

Re:Give my regards to the Earth's core...

[maxwell demon]

Ok, let's start the pseudo-science and conspiracy theory generator :-)

Well, you know, in Rosswell there's a dark energy vortex, which extents to the core. This BTW is why the alien space ship crashed; it's quite unusual to have dark energy vortices on earth-like planets (it's not that unusual on gas planets, for example the Great Red Spot is in reality the result of a - much bigger - dark energy vortex [don't believe the scientist telling you it's just a big storm!]), therefore the aliens were not prepared to it. Indeed Earth is quite special to have a particularly rich dark energy vortex structure (a rather big one is e.g. at the Bermuda triangle, although that one reaches a few hundred kilometers into the air, instead going down), which is also the cause of earth rays (water just acts as focus lense for them).

Now the delta-omega in conjunction with the other periodic effects from sun and moon causes certain structures of the core to coincide with the vortex axis about every 200,000 years. This results in a temporary slowdown of the core (the rotation energy gets transferred into the vortex during that time, and then back into the core to let it spin again). This slowdown lets the magnetic field vanish. Now the time of this breakdown happens to coincide with half a period of the vortex' intrinsic oszillation, therefore when the magnetic field is re-built, it points into the opposite direction.

Ok, where do the right-wing conspiracies come in? Well, the knowledge of this is actually held back by the right-wing politicians because the dark energy vortex interacts with the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Now the increasing level of CO2 might cause the vortex to move, and secret calculations show that in doing so it would permanently kill the rotation of the core and therefore destroy the magnetic field of the Earth. In order to avoid any danger to the oil sales, right-wing politicians actively suppress this knowled... wait, why are those black helicopters in front of my ... NO CARRIER

Re:Give my regards to the Earth's core...

[Smidge204]

Dear kzinti;

Current scientific theories on this subject are, at best, incomplete. I would like to offer an equally plausible alternative theory; Intelligent Spinning.

The Intelligent Spinner carefully regulates the speed at which the Earth's inner core rotates relative to the crust, thus regulating with great accuracy the strength and shape of the Earth's protective magnetic shield. Since this shield is so vital to life on this planet, it is inconceivable that it exists merely by chance. Therefore, we can conclude that the Intelligent Spinner was put in place by the Intelligent Designer, as one of the many mechanisms to protect His creation.

Extrapolating from this scenario, we arrive at the conclusion that the magnetic field reversal is all part of the Intelligent Designer's plan. Indeed, so-called "scientific" estimates have failed to predict another reversal. The Science-agenda advocates would have you believe that such reversals occur every 200,000 years, however in the same breath they also claim it has been over 780,000 years since the previous one. It is apparent that these scientists are simply making excuses for their flawed theories. Indeed, as we all know the Earth is only about 6,000 years old so the very notion of a 200,000 year cycle is absurd! My Intelligent Spinner theory predicts that the magnetic poles has (and will) weaken and eventually flip whenever the Intelligent Designer deems the time is right.

As you can see, my alternative theory explains the observed natural phenomena just as well as -- indeed, better than -- the current "scientific" theories of geology. I therefore assert that my theory is at least a viable alternative and feel that equal time should be given to its teaching in the classroom.

Thank you for your time;
=Smidge=

Re:Give my regards to the Earth's core...

[Mudcathi]

Makes me wonder how geomagnetic reversals coincide with the speciation and evolution of our ancestors (or any animals).

I imagine that the mix up caused confused ducks to fly to Alaska for the winter, instead of Florida... and so if a reversal were to occur today, with the little magnetic compasses in our grandparent's pristine 1972 Chevy Impalas pointing 180 degrees in the wrong direction, we'll find their frozen carcasses somewhere in the Yukon around late November, surrounded by baffled ducks.

Re:Give my regards to the Earth's core...

[Beale]

This is just one example of the work of the Flying Spaghetti Monster in his Harlem Globetrotter aspect.

May we be forever touched by his noodly appendage.

Re:Give my regards to the Earth's core...

[Smidge204]

May we be forever touched by his noodly appendage.

RAmen.

=Smidge=

Easily Explained

[Ann Elk]

The core spins faster because the bodies of the US founding fathers are spinning in their graves at such high RPM.

Re:Easily Explained

[Junior J. Junior III]

No, it's clearly intelligent spin. There must be some agent of unimaginable power who is actively pushing the core to faster velocities. We cannot know why someone would want to do this, but as they must be very intelligent to figure out a way to accomplish this, we must conclude that they have their reasons.

Now, the real question in my mind, is the intelligent spinner Vulcan/Hephaestus, YHWH, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

My theory is that it's the FSM. While Vulcan and Hephaestus were gods of the earth and of volcanoes, they were only minor characters in the Olympian pantheon, and on top of that, cripples. Clearly they are incapable of pushing the Earth's core at all. YHWH is too busy turning homosexuals into pillars of salt to be bothered with core spinning. Therefore, only a noodley appendage can spin the Earth's Core at such a velocity.

Complete?

[Boronx]

Whoah, it looks like it's going to complete one full spin in the next decade, that's going to make Y2K look like a walk in the park.

Re:Complete?

[neverutterwhen]

Y2K was a walk in the park.

If the core ever stops spinning

[strannik]

We'll need to do core dump analysis.

Re:Will the Earth cease to have magnetic poles?

[Aerion]

I understand that there was a well-done documentary about this subject made a few years ago. You should check it out.

And on the sixth day..

[Anonymous Coward]

God overclocked the core, and saw that it was good.

Has a cure

[La Gris]

Everyone head to the east with their car and go as fast as possible.

And everyone around the world, press the breaks all at once, while riding to the east.

That may be enough to accelerate the Earth's rotation :)

1996

[Black Parrot]

Great to see the timely Slashdot article. I need a reminder about these things every nine years or so.

Superman's fault

[Himring]

It's Superman's fault. All cuz that bitch, Lois Lane, went and died, so he flew real fast and sped up the crust, then switched it back, but now the inside is still all fucked up....

Re: Hmmm...

[Black Parrot]

> Given that the Earth's rotation is slowing down, isn't it immediately apparent that the liquid core must spin faster than the outside. It's just basic fluid dynamics. If apply a torque to the outside of a fluid filled region, the middle of that region will feel the effect last.

At noon let's all face west and run five miles real fast, to see if we can get the shell back up to speed.

Stop

[JustOK]

Stop the world, I want to get off.

Re: Hmmm...

[NatasRevol]

I'm on the north pole, you insensitive clod!

Can I just spin real fast?

Re:Tidal Drag

[WeeLad]

Always facing us? I always thought it was always facing AWAY from us. Hence the name "moon" which I believe is latin for "to show the backside".

Re:extinctions

[fijimf]

Homo erectus didn't have a society totally dependant on electronics for it's economics and machines to feed it's population.

As far as you know . . .