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I already knew this and I don't know what's so surprising about it. 1.26 milliseconds seems like an overestimate though.
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Its amazing how milliseconds should be considered. Its not like this will occur everyday. :/
Im wasting seconds watching youtube right now. 
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Canada8029 Posts
1.26 milliseconds is practically unnoticeable. Yes, it's possible for natural disasters to affect the long term state of the Earth (eg. volcanic ash causing global cooling), but really, it's small fries compared to the immediate effects. It's like worrying about fallout when a nuke goes off over your house.
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Yeah, it's pretty much only significant if you're a scientist who is actually studying the length of Earth days or something.
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Oh man, compound this over a few more billion years, and we might lose a minute!
(kind of interesting, for that sort of useless information reason)
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i hope the world has more disaster and make the days shorter so that it makes me look like my life span is over 9000 y/o
but seriously 1 microsec is nothing lol
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On March 03 2010 16:52 madnessman wrote:
1.26 milliseconds
Yahoo misquoted the scientist. He calculated that the day was shortened by 1.26 microseconds.
And at 1.26 microseconds (1.26 x 10^(-6)) per day, that equals to ~.46 milliseconds per year (4.6 x 10^(-4)). So yeah, insignificant to our lives.
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I'd like to know what his methodology was to arrive at this number. Also, it micro as mentioned, not milli.
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amazing that the nasa scientist was able to keep a straight face while delivering the news to a few reporters.
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Fuck, Jaedong will make 1 less action per day now.
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On March 03 2010 17:31 buickskylark wrote:
amazing that the nasa scientist was able to keep a straight face while delivering the news to a few reporters.
Why? I think it's interesting. We've had 2 earthquakes in our lifetimes (or at least my lifetime) that have shortened the days of our year by a measurable amount. Since the estimated existence of life up until now, the average day could have shifted by a few hours at this point.
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I'm pretty sure rocket launches also affect the earth's movement through space. Mother Nature isn't the only one throwing Earth off an ideal orbit.
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This wasn't actually measured, just calculated, so I am a little skeptical that their models are that accurate. After all, a microsecond is about one 100 billionth (1/100,000,000,000) of a day.
And here I am modeling engine valves in a lab with 5% accuracy.
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On March 03 2010 17:49 Fontong wrote:
Fuck, Jaedong will make 1 less action per day now.
lol...that could change everything this year!
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On March 03 2010 17:49 Fontong wrote:
Fuck, Jaedong will make 1 less action per day now.
Hahahha gold!
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its kinda normal. I guess all other +9 earthquake did the same O.o
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konadora
Singapore66117 Posts
I guess this will only affect our great-great-great-great^great grandchildren
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On March 03 2010 19:04 Exteray wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2010 17:49 Fontong wrote:
Fuck, Jaedong will make 1 less action per day now. Hahahha gold!
ROFL
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huh?
Since when were the days stable? It was always variable in terms of milli/microseconds from day to day. Its not exactly 24 x 60 x 60 every day.
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Snet
United States3573 Posts
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i think a lot of people are underestimating the implications of this. it isnt about 1.26 microseconds at all, because it means that the earth's rotation axis isnt as stable as we like to think.
things you should be aware of here are the following:
a handful of degrees increase in average global temperature can make huge changes to climate. climate (local temperature) is related to how long different localities are exposed to sunlight (and also the angle at which it hits the earth).
if one earthquake already shitfs the axis by 8cm just think about how many factors of similar or greater magnitude can and do occur and will shift this axis as well, and what this will say about the length of day/night and temperature shifts that come with it.
a lot of people say that 1.26 microseconds is no big deal and speak of the proverbial sack of rice in china, but polar icecaps are melting (they are a pretty considerable mass), tectonic plates are moving all the time, earthquakes cannot be averted, supervolcanos exist and asteroids/comets do as well.
there are a lot of things that could cause severe problems by shifting the earth rotational axis seeing how easily it can be shifted. and id really like to see the people shouting "who cares" now when their ecosystem collapses. maybe they dont care because a human only lives to 70 (if he makes it that far that is). but that doesnt make the effects of such things any less grave or harmful.
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On March 03 2010 22:01 samachking wrote:
huh?
Since when were the days stable? It was always variable in terms of milli/microseconds from day to day. Its not exactly 24 x 60 x 60 every day.
there is the difference though between changing rotational speed alone (and this does happen a lot, but the changes are miniscule) and a shift of the axis of rotation itself as result of an event with impact on the geological scale.
also: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fyl5z
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What? That's HUGE. That's like, 1/8 of a full second. I'm not even being sarcastic, this IS alarming.
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On March 04 2010 02:32 WheelOfTime wrote:
What? That's HUGE. That's like, 1/8 of a full second. I'm not even being sarcastic, this IS alarming.
lol no alarm is needed for that dude 
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I'd say the earth moving 3 inches from it's normal rotation is a bit concerning. Mostly because I have no idea how delicate our orbit is though.
Oh well. As long as all of earth's history is erased before I've done anything great, I won't have much to regret. I'll only be pissed if it's after.
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On March 04 2010 02:28 enzym wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2010 22:01 samachking wrote:
huh?
Since when were the days stable? It was always variable in terms of milli/microseconds from day to day. Its not exactly 24 x 60 x 60 every day. there is the difference though between changing rotational speed alone (and this does happen a lot, but the changes are miniscule) and a shift of the axis of rotation itself as result of an event with impact on the geological scale. also: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fyl5z
Yeah thats the documentary where I got it from. Pretty decent documentary.
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wait so the earthquake sped up the rotation of the earth? That doesn't really make sense to me, because whenever I've had something spinning fluidly it always spins faster than something that is shaken. (obviously this is not a very good example, but i'm not a scientist)
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how would our lives be when our days are brought down to a minute.
+ Show Spoiler +
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On March 03 2010 17:49 Fontong wrote:
Fuck, Jaedong will make 1 less action per day now.
haha so good
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On March 03 2010 16:52 madnessman wrote:
I found this alarming. Even though I giggled at the movie 2012 and its theories, the amount of natural disasters that have occurred lately, and the ability of natural disasters to have such an impact on our planet as to possibly have shifted the Earth's very axis just shocks me. Thoughts? Reactions?
I doubt it's that natural disasters are occurring more frequently, it's just that with internet and all you actually hear about shit. A hundred years ago you wouldn't even be aware it happened.
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On March 04 2010 06:55 Straylight wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2010 16:52 madnessman wrote:
I found this alarming. Even though I giggled at the movie 2012 and its theories, the amount of natural disasters that have occurred lately, and the ability of natural disasters to have such an impact on our planet as to possibly have shifted the Earth's very axis just shocks me. Thoughts? Reactions?
I doubt it's that natural disasters are occurring more frequently, it's just that with internet and all you actually hear about shit. A hundred years ago you wouldn't even be aware it happened.
Maybe you couldn't tell from a hundred years ago, but maybe 50 years ago? Or even 20 years ago. It does seem like a lot of big disasters are happening close in time to each other for the last several years. I don't remember there being this many in the 1990s.
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Its not enough to be significant, at all. Also it can work the other way so the earths rotation is SLOWED a little bit.
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On March 04 2010 02:32 WheelOfTime wrote:
What? That's HUGE. That's like, 1/8 of a full second. I'm not even being sarcastic, this IS alarming.
Microseconds. 1.26 µs = 1.26 * 10^(-6) s, so rather than lose a second every 8 days, we lose a second about every 2200 years. Since there are already leap seconds that indicate our solar day is increasing in average length much faster than earthquakes (such this one and the Indonesian tsunami) are shortening it, I don't think we have to worry about noticing changes in the lengths of our days. As has been said, the bigger problem is the axis-shift.
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EPT
