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Chilean Earthquake Shortened Earth's Day
ailnlv writes "Days on Earth just got shorter. The recent earthquake in Chile shifted the planet's axis by about 8 cm and shortened days by 1.26 microseconds 'The changes can be modeled, though they're difficult to detect physically given their small size. ... Some changes may be more obvious, and islands may have shifted. ... Santa Maria Island off the coast near Concepcion, Chile’s second-largest city, may have been raised 2 meters (6 feet) as a result of the latest quake ...'"
I can go home a few microseconds early today.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Crap, I was going to post something funny, but now I'm 1.26 microseconds late. Sorry, I gotta run...
either way, it's anthropogenic.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Man, I checked out that pizza link in your sig, and that is so cool! I wish the pizza place would be that good around here. I live in NYC and I can't even get them to leave their car to deliver pizza to my door, let alone all those other handy features they show there.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
I mean, don't forget that a day only has 86,400 seconds (give or take...). One such quake doesn't really matter. A hundred won't. A million will start to matter. A billion definitly will.
And of course, they don't happen every day but, well, a billion years ain't that long if you're a planet...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It means that no one had posted anything to the comments of the story yet. And if you are a /. regular it's really a secret troll code telling you to rush in to comment about frosty piss and checking the post anonymously button while praying to the FSM that you beat all the other cowards to it. ;)
Oh, for fuck's sake! I've got too much shit to do already! And now, I have 1.26 microseconds less to do it in??!! Scheisse! Of course, maybe I shouldn't post on slashdot. Maybe that would save more than 1.26 microseconds.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
I knew it! I blame the political party I'm not affiliated with.
Does this affect GPS for a short time? I understand that the USAF (or whoever runs it) will correct the system, but how quickly does this occur? Would it affect a JDAM bomb in flight, for example?
Remember, this is only what a model predicts, unlike what the headline suggests. And anyway, I think even if the quake had effects on day length and/or axis, another quake somewhere else on Earth sets it back a little. It averages out to what we witness. Earth is a dynamic place.
But according to my calculations, all we have to do is set our calendars back a day... ... in 188,253,750 (ish) years.
I wonder how the PS3 will handle this.
People of Earth, at 18:00 GMT March 10 we all jump at the same time and regain our microsecond!
Will it affect global climate?
Yes - the days are shorter, therefore less sunlight per day, ergo - global cooling!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Q. What do all ice ages have in common?
A. They never happened! That's what they have in common, they have all been concocted by scientists with an agenda to undermine scripture.
And for all those who think that this earthquake wasn't caused by Man ... well it was! Fornication, homosexuality, feminism, democracy, drug-taking, violent video games, on-line porn, science, charity, freedom of speech, blashpemy, etc. etc. all these evils will not go unpunished!
I actually liked the ACLU until I followed that link. Thanks a lot. Now I'm starting to wonder if they're any less crazy than the Ron Paul fanatics.
You say this to make fun of the global warming debate, but theoretically it's not completely impossible that underground nuclear testing has something to do with the specifics of any earthquakes since the 1950s or so. Earthquakes are undoubtedly chaotic, and a series of megaton explosions underground might have shaken things a little and helped them get where they're going faster (temporarily).
Mind you, I'm not claiming that's necessarily the case either (or even probably the case). Just that, much like a decent conspiracy theory, it's not entirely nonsense or outside the realm of possibility. (I'd guess that overall seismicity remains the same overall but chaotic effects will change the locations of, say, half the aftershocks next century.)
USGS FAQ here.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
It's the fault of both the parties, you sheeple!
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
The earth is naturally slowing down at a rate that makes this sort of thing hardly worth mentioning.
Actually, the slowdown is only about 2ms/century, or about 0.054 microseconds/day. So a 1-microsecond jump in a day should be noticeable. This information is tracked. Here's the raw data from the Earth Rotation Service.
With GPS systems working down to 15cm, changes like this get noticed.
theoretically it's not completely impossible that underground nuclear testing has something to do with the specifics of any earthquakes since the 1950s or so.
No doubt. Theoretically, it is an absolute certainty that the migration of swallows to Capistrano has something to do with the specifics of every earthquake for centuries now.
Q. What do all ice ages have in common?
A. They never happened! That's what they have in common, they have all been concocted by scientists with an agenda to undermine scripture.
And for all those who think that this earthquake wasn't caused by Man ... well it was! Fornication, homosexuality, feminism, democracy, drug-taking, violent video games, on-line porn, science, charity, freedom of speech, blashpemy, etc. etc. all these evils will not go unpunished!
Cool ... so how does this work then? Do we just pick our favourite 5 or something? OK ... give me a fornication, drug-taking, on-line porn, with a side of violent video games, and good God why not, throw in some blasphemy!
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
More people die in car accidents every single day than died in this earthquake.
And that, I think, is actually a real problem---it would be really great if you could somehow get people to drive a bit more safely. It'd save a lot of lives, including the lives of a bunch of productive citizens, i.e. it'd also bring more material wealth for everybody.
Yeah, sure, that shouldn't take the spotlight away from a recent significant event (which also has a lot of wounded and property damage).
But maybe it's something worth pouring resources into?
As you probably already know, there are loads of other more mundane ways to instigate an earthquake. This wired article is quite interesting. To summarise:
Build a Dam Inject Liquid Into the Ground Mine a Lot of Coal Drill a Gusher Dry Create the World’s Biggest BuildingI think if everyone in the world stands up and raises their arms for 10 seconds once per year, we can compensate for this.
Okay, if this is the case, explain the sudden three inch drop in shadow (I use the shadow on a tarp to determine seasonal change) which usually indicates a full month of time passing, and this happening within two days of the earthquake.
I learned how to read time and the season by the shadows while in prison. Pretty neat when you learn how to do it, but this totally throws the estimation off.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
In Chaos Theory, a small change to the inputs can cause large changes to the results.
However the changes are just as likelly to go in one direction as they are to go in the opposite direction: the butterfly effect is just as likelly to result in a typhoon instead of clear weather as it is to result in clear weather instead of a typhoon.
Also, small changes to inputs can cause small changes to the outputs or even no changes at all (that's why it's called Chaos Theory) - plenty of butterflies flutter-about with out creating typhoons ;)
If indeed the system that underpins earthquakes is chaotic, underground nuclear tests are just as likelly to have brought forward quakes as they are to have delayed quakes as they are not not have had much effect at all - in fact, they're likelly to have done all of them.
Its ok though, because it offset the effect of the three gorges dam in china, which made the days longer. http://www.theenergylibrary.com/node/11435 sure, that dam lengthened the day by less than the earthquake shortened it, but we also have to account for other dams that have lengthened days.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.