Community Stories

Earth's Rotation is slowing down. Our watches are about to become obsolete.

Dedalus05
Posts
414
Likes
859
Source:

Time is flying – global clocks may soon have to be sped up to match slower rotation of the Earth

https://m.independent.ie/news/envir...ch-slower-rotation-of-the-earth-41881053.html

I lie, of course. But I do like the idea of watchmakers adding a "leap second" to our perpetual calendars.

Or perhaps they can shave a nanometer off each tooth on the escape wheel(?) on our Speedys to compensate for the 0.58 seconds or so they'll lose each year?
 
JanV
Posts
907
Likes
2,486
Nah, we just stick a USB stick into them or update our vintage 2998’s thru bluetooth.
 
Pvt-Public
Posts
2,526
Likes
3,573
Dedalus05 Dedalus05
Source:

Time is flying – global clocks may soon have to be sped up to match slower rotation of the Earth

https://m.independent.ie/news/envir...ch-slower-rotation-of-the-earth-41881053.html

I lie, of course. But I do like the idea of watchmakers adding a "leap second" to our perpetual calendars.

Or perhaps they can shave a nanometer off each tooth on the escape wheel(?) on our Speedys to compensate for the 0.58 seconds or so they'll lose each year?
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. It’s all fake news!! We all know the earth is flat and the sun revolves around it. Just ask any of the earth centrists or flat earthers all around the globe. 😝:whipped:
Edited:
 
Dedalus05
Posts
414
Likes
859
Pvt-Public Pvt-Public
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. It’s all fake news!! We all know the earth is flat and the sun revolves around it. Just ask any of the earth centrists or flat earthers around the globe. 😝:whipped:

You're right. Next time my watch loses 1.59 milliseconds in a day I'm going to blame globalists. It's their way of making me work more for less pay.

Think about it! Do your own research!!
 
Donn Chambers
Posts
2,537
Likes
3,397
Man, that article is wrong on so many accounts. I quote one sentence:

“The Chandler Wobble is the change in the spin of the Earth on its axis and it normally causes Earth’s rotation to increase, meaning it takes longer to complete a turn.”

Which is not physically correct at all. As a physical oceanographer and geodesist who has worked on measuring Earth rotation and length of day in the past, “scientific” articles like this that get the science wrong on a basic level irritate the hell out of me. The Earth’s rotation is, on average slowing down, due to tidal forces. There are slight deviations in this, caused by movement in the ocean and land water mass movement. The Chandler Wobble is one of these slight fluctuations; it is a quasi-periodic fluctuation with about a 14-month period and has no overall affect on the long-term rate of change.

What has been causing the recent increase in the rotation rate is the tremendous loss of ice mass on Greenland, which is spread out over the ocean. Several papers in the last five years have clearly documented that this is the source of the signal — it’s not a difficult calculation (fo a geodesist) to make.

This is a better article, although still not perfect.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/earth-rotation-speed/
 
RevZMan123
Posts
2,056
Likes
4,188
Based on the laws of physics and chaos, our watches and measurement of time can only get so precise before the direct observation makes it so "fuzzy" as to make measuring it impossible:

https://www.sciencealert.com/physicists-find-as-clocks-get-more-precise-time-gets-more-fuzzy

This is "way" back in 2017 so things are probably different now, but back then "physicists combined two grand theories of physics to conclude not only is time not universally consistent, any clock we use to measure it will blur the flow of time in its surrounding space."

Wild.
 
gbesq
Posts
9,171
Likes
48,415
The Earth’s rotation is slowing down? You mean in addition to climate change, Covid, rampant inflation, supply chain shortages, war and the softening of Rolex prices!?! That’s it. I’m moving to Romulus.
 
Sign up or log in to reply...