Here's a pretty crazy story about that big Chilean earthquake last week. It shifted the Earth's axis by about 3 inches and "permanently" shortened the day by 6.8 milliseconds!
Says the article, it's akin to a spinning figure skater. Pulling in her arms makes her go faster.
Which makes me wonder, if the Earth is now spinning faster wouldn't that increase gravity as well? And does the change in axis make us all more unbalanced? Perhaps a downward-to-the-left pull?
Who needs drugs when there's nature?...
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P.S. Quote of the story: "What definitely the earthquake has done is made the Earth ring like a bell." Kinda like Jaromir Jagr below...
1 comment:
My amateur physics studies lead me to believe that the Earth's gravity will not be affected by the earthquake, but the resulting centripetal force may simulate an infinitesimal "sucking" increase.
However, there's some big doings over at CERN's atom smasher, which may or may not result in the creation of a singularity (black hole) on the border between France and Switzerland. Most likely, this would have an effect on the Earth's gravitational field...unless time travelers from the future succeed in sabotaging the experiments again. You could look it up!
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