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

Poul-Henning Kamp phk at phk.freebsd.dk
Fri Jul 15 05:54:46 UTC 2011


In message <3209.12.6.201.213.1310686158.squirrel at popaccts.quikus.com>, "J. For
ster" writes:

>If you got all the Chinese to just stand on a chair, it would increase the
>Moment of Inertia of the earth a smitch, and it would slow the rotation
>because of the Conservation of Angular Momentum.

1. It's not obvious that there are that many chairs in China.

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...

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Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
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