Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
Support MFO
Donate through PayPal
Very OT: Astrochronology and Why Earth Days Are Getting Longer
Wait a second. I remember there was a mutual fund that was investing based on astronomy or astrology or whatever. Don't think i dreamt this. There really was.
@Maurice - Do not all things set in motion eventually slow? Think of a child’s spinning top, a gyroscope or - to use your article’s example - a spinning figure skater.
1.4 billion years is a very long time. By comparison, dinosaurs first appeared on Earth less than 250 million years ago. While short on science, the article does put a different spin on an age old question (slightly modified): “If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no dianasours around to hear it, is there any sound?”
To be more direct, If there was no one around to observe the 18 hour day, does it really matter?
It is usually assumed that humans have a 24-hour circadian rhythm. The findings cited above suggest that humans may have adapted or will adapt to a longer cycle.
I read of a study conducted in a salt mine in which people were deprived of natural light and all time pieces. Over the course of the study, the subjects tended to stay up later and sleep later than the 24-hour rhythm would suggest. In other words, their internal clocks defied the so-called natural order of day/night. Graham Robb, in his book, "The Discovery of France," documents rural dwellers prior to electric lighting who hibernated all winter to emerge like bears in the spring.
”It is usually assumed that humans have a 24-hour circadian rhythm. The findings cited above suggest that humans may have adapted or will adapt to a longer cycle.”
@BenWP - Huh? At the rate the earth’s rotation has been slowing, the current day is less than one-minute longer today than it was when the first known humans emerged in Eithiopia. One minute wouldn’t do much to my circadian rhythm.
Known human existence - 2.8 million years
Rate of slowing - 1 minute (per-day) every 3.3 million years
Here’s the science:
“The team found that thanks to the gradual slowing of our planet's rotation, a day on Earth lengthens by around 1.8 milliseconds every 100 years. ... it will take around 3.3 million years to gain just 1 minute, and 2 million more centuries for us to add a much-needed extra hour to our day.”https://www.sciencealert.com/astronomers-find-a-day-on-earth-is-getting-longer-each-century
“Scientists have unearthed the jawbone of what they claim is one of the very first humans. The 2.8 million-year-old specimen is 400,000 years older than researchers thought that our kind first emerged.” https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31718336
@Mauice. Thank you for the response. To each his own. I’m a big believer in science and if you found it of value so be it. I will tell you that the prevailing theory about the formation of the moon (which the article references) has been around for at least a decade. My reading suggests it is by far the most widely accepted theory among modern scientists (but not yet universally accepted). Here’s mention of a 2007 CIT study that concluded essentially the same: “In 2007, researchers from the California Institute of Technology showed that the likelihood of Theia having an identical isotopic signature as the Earth was very small (less than 1 percent).[24] They proposed that in the aftermath of the giant impact, while the Earth and the proto-lunar disk were molten and vaporized, the two reservoirs were connected by a common silicate vapour ...” (Read more at Wikipedia.) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-impact_hypothesis
Bottom line: Maurice, I’m fine with your own emphasis on truly immense geological time scales and how our environment has been shaped over the millennium. What I’m not OK with is the attempt by certain right-wing media / media pundants to use evidence of these very slow evolutionary changes to somehow debunk irrefutable scientific evidence that the earth’s climate has been warming precipitously in recent decades and that man’s activities can be directly implicated in this global warming. Two different birds here. Yes - the day has lengthened by about one minute since the dawn of humans. But in a few short centuries man has managed to melt global ice caps and in other ways initiate substantial harmful climatic changes. As long as that’s not where you’re heading with this ... I’m OK with the article.
(And I found the bit about the 1978 crash of the Pacific Southwest 727 aircraft in California fascinating.)
Astronomy’s always been my “first love” too. No telescope - just a set of good 12X image-stabilized binoculars. A highlight of last summer was picking up the Andromeda galaxy for the first time ever out in the back yard on a moonless night. Wow!
Comments
Regards,
Ted
1.4 billion years is a very long time. By comparison, dinosaurs first appeared on Earth less than 250 million years ago. While short on science, the article does put a different spin on an age old question (slightly modified): “If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no dianasours around to hear it, is there any sound?”
To be more direct, If there was no one around to observe the 18 hour day, does it really matter?
https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/circadian-rhythm-disorders-cause#2
I read of a study conducted in a salt mine in which people were deprived of natural light and all time pieces. Over the course of the study, the subjects tended to stay up later and sleep later than the 24-hour rhythm would suggest. In other words, their internal clocks defied the so-called natural order of day/night. Graham Robb, in his book, "The Discovery of France," documents rural dwellers prior to electric lighting who hibernated all winter to emerge like bears in the spring.
Known human existence - 2.8 million years
Rate of slowing - 1 minute (per-day) every 3.3 million years
Here’s the science:
“The team found that thanks to the gradual slowing of our planet's rotation, a day on Earth lengthens by around 1.8 milliseconds every 100 years. ... it will take around 3.3 million years to gain just 1 minute, and 2 million more centuries for us to add a much-needed extra hour to our day.”https://www.sciencealert.com/astronomers-find-a-day-on-earth-is-getting-longer-each-century
“Scientists have unearthed the jawbone of what they claim is one of the very first humans.
The 2.8 million-year-old specimen is 400,000 years older than researchers thought that our kind first emerged.” https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31718336
@Mauice. Thank you for the response. To each his own. I’m a big believer in science and if you found it of value so be it. I will tell you that the prevailing theory about the formation of the moon (which the article references) has been around for at least a decade. My reading suggests it is by far the most widely accepted theory among modern scientists (but not yet universally accepted). Here’s mention of a 2007 CIT study that concluded essentially the same: “In 2007, researchers from the California Institute of Technology showed that the likelihood of Theia having an identical isotopic signature as the Earth was very small (less than 1 percent).[24] They proposed that in the aftermath of the giant impact, while the Earth and the proto-lunar disk were molten and vaporized, the two reservoirs were connected by a common silicate vapour ...” (Read more at Wikipedia.) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-impact_hypothesis
Bottom line: Maurice, I’m fine with your own emphasis on truly immense geological time scales and how our environment has been shaped over the millennium. What I’m not OK with is the attempt by certain right-wing media / media pundants to use evidence of these very slow evolutionary changes to somehow debunk irrefutable scientific evidence that the earth’s climate has been warming precipitously in recent decades and that man’s activities can be directly implicated in this global warming. Two different birds here. Yes - the day has lengthened by about one minute since the dawn of humans. But in a few short centuries man has managed to melt global ice caps and in other ways initiate substantial harmful climatic changes. As long as that’s not where you’re heading with this ... I’m OK with the article.
(And I found the bit about the 1978 crash of the Pacific Southwest 727 aircraft in California fascinating.)
Astronomy’s always been my “first love” too. No telescope - just a set of good 12X image-stabilized binoculars. A highlight of last summer was picking up the Andromeda galaxy for the first time ever out in the back yard on a moonless night. Wow!
Regards & Thanks for the original post,
hank