All too often I find myself staying up too late at night and not getting as much sleep as I should as a result. Throughout my entire adult life I have struggled with the dilemma of how much fun I have at night versus how tired I can afford to feel in the morning. This is something that we will have to deal with forever…right?
This morning CNN ran a story about the results of Saturday’s earthquake in Chile. While the quake was of course not what the residents of Chile wanted to deal with on a Saturday, it did have one interesting effect. According to NASA scientists, enough mass shifted from the outer layers of the earth to the inside on Saturday that it caused a significant change in its distribution of mass.
Lemme hit you with some science. You know how when a figure skater pulls in his/her arms while turning to make his/herself turn faster? That’s because when gold medalist Evan Lysacek does so he’s bringing lots of his mass closer to his center of rotation (the middle of his body), making him much easier to spin. (You can try this at home if you butter your kitchen floor!)*
The same principle applies on a global scale. It’s as if Mother Earth was doing an eternal triple Axel, and on Saturday she moved her arms in closer to her body. This means that our planet is now spinning slightly faster, which means the day is now permanently shorter. Unlike the facts in most of my articles, I am not making this up. This actually happened.
Be afraid, America: Our day is now 1.26 microseconds (or 1.26 millionths of a second) shorter.
Be even more afraid: This is happening more often than you’d think. Back in 2004, the earthquake in the Indian Ocean that caused the famous tsunami shortened our days by 6.4 microseconds. And we weren’t even told about it.
Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’…into the future.
THE GOOD NEWS: I have a master plan to make our lives immensely easier based on this science. Evan Lysacek knows that he can pull his arms in to make himself spin faster, AND he can bring them far away from his center to slow himself down. Perhaps this will make more global sense to all of you non-scientists if I illustrate my idea with my scientific drafting software:
My modest proposal involves us sucking up roughly half of the matter from the Earth’s core (presumably through a series of tubes) and placing it (carefully) on the surface of the planet. I am essentially proposing that we use science** to force Mother Earth to stretch out her arms. By my calculations (read: guesses), we’ll slow the planet down to a 32-hour day, which means 8 hours of extra sleep (or partying) for us every day!
Best of all, my master plan comes with absolutely no repercussions!*
- No instant drastic cooling of the Earth due to an absence of heated core!
- No insane rises in sea level resulting from new land masses being dropped from giant tubes into the oceans!
- No psychologically horrible period of everyone attempting to retrain their internal clocks!
- No laughable waste of manpower and resources for a decades-long project!
I’ve saved the day again! You’re welcome!
*Octavarius claims no responsibility for injuries sustained by figure-skating on a buttered floor.
**And possibly magic.
***Note: In order for said repercussions not to exist, everyone is required not to think about them.
