[time-nuts] Japan Quake May Have Shortened Earth Days, Moved Axis

[Hal Murray]

phk at phk.freebsd.dk said:
> 2. It really does not change the momentum that much:
> 	m(pop,china) = 1.5e9 * 50kg = 7.5e10 kg
> 	m(earth)     = 5.97e24 kg 
> A ratio of roughly 8e13...

Neat.  Thanks.

I think you missed another big factor.  The height of a chair is tiny 
relative to the radius of the Earth.

Lets call a chair 1 meter.  The radius of the Earth is 6,3xx km or 6E6 
meters.  So that makes a ratio of more than 1E20.

1E14 we might be able to notice. 1E20 will be lost in the noise.

Does anybody have a good graph for summer vs winter?  I'd expect snow loading 
might be big enough to show up.

--------

PS: You need to round down the earth's moment of inertia by 2/5 because it's 
a uniform density sphere rather than the mass being concentrated at the 
radius on the equator.  (mass next to the axis doesn't help)

I'm assuming all the people in China are on the equator.  There is a cos 
latitude fudge factor to correct for that.


-- 
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's.  I hate spam.