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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!
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?
The reason the day length changes is because the quake caused a net motion of mass toward the center of the planet. This reduces the moment of inertia, and because of conservation of momentum, the planet's rotation must speed up.
If this happened repeatedly, it would mean that the density of the planet was increasing. That can't happen to any significant degree, because it would involve compression, which requires a source of energy (note -- I don't mean that the increased rotation is due to an energy input, just that it takes energy to compress a planet). Earthquakes just move energy around, they do not create it. So over long spans of time, earthquakes tend to increase the length of the day by about as much as they decrease it. It all depends on whether the net motion was toward the center of the earth or away from it.
This is based on my knowledge of physics, but I am not a geologist, so there may be complicating factors I don't know about. However, I'm pretty sure that the planet's density cannot increase arbitrarily.
Remember, this is only what a model predicts, unlike what the headline suggests.
Lemme guess: they used the Quake II engine?
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
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!
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
I wonder... Compare the total weight of the entire chinese population to the total weight of the entire population of the US. Who's heavier?
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
If the US jumped a microsecond after China then the US would act as the wall and the earth would bounce into the opposite top corner pocket, haven't you ever played pool before.
Dude, you're doing it all wrong, you want to put ENGLISH on the ball.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
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.
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.
This is based on my knowledge of physics, but I am not a geologist, so there may be complicating factors I don't know about. However, I'm pretty sure that the planet's density cannot increase arbitrarily.
What goes up must come down...in geology, it's called istosasy. It's sort of like gravitational equilibrium. What sinks in one place is usually offset by a height increase elsewhere. Over years, the small geologic events (and yes, the Chile earthquake is small when measured in geologic units) balance themselves out. I would not worry too much about the lost microsecond. We'll gain it back next year.
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.