True or False?

Question

The earth's rotaion is slowing down 1/1000th of a second a day. If we multilpy that out over millions of years... we end up with the earth spinning at a terrific speed, night and day would come and go in a matter of seconds.

What part is false?

If we calculate in accordance to millions of years ago, when the earth was formed.

Answer 1

What you said is HALF correct.

TRUE! The Earth is slowing down due to a transfer of Earth's rotational momentum to the Moon's orbital momentum as tidal friction slows the Earth's rotation. That increase in the Moon's speed is causing it to slowly recede from Earth (about 4 cm per year), increasing its orbital period and the length of a month as well.


FALSE! To picture what is happening, imagine yourself riding a bicycle on a track built around a Merry-go-Round. You are riding in the same direction that it is turning. If you have a lasso and rope one of the horses, you would gain speed and the Merry-Go-Round would lose some. In this analogy, you and your bike represent the Moon, the Merry-Go-Round is the rotating Earth, and your lasso is gravity. In orbital mechanics, a gain in speed results in a higher orbit.

Chinese geologists believe that 1.3 billion years ago one year on planet Earth lasted for 540 days, 13-14 months with 42 days in each month. There were 15 hours in one day.

1.3 billion years ago:

a DAY is 15 hrs.
a MONTH is 42 days.
a YEAR is 13-14 mons. and 540 days.

Answer 2

1)The earth's rotaion is slowing down - true

2)1/1000th of a second a day - false

3)If we multilpy that out over millions of years - hypothetical... false because it started 4.5 Billion years ago

4)... we end up with the earth spinning at a terrific speed - false -we end with 1 rotation per revolution (just like the moon does)

5)night and day would come and go in a matter of seconds,
false - days and nights won't end

you don't have to worry about that because the sun will become a red giant and swallow the inner planets, which includes the earth and, of course, the moon.

Answer 3

The Earth is not slowing down by 1/1000th of a second a day. It is slowing down, but much less than that. The addition of one leap second every year or so does not mean each day is 1/1000 of a second longer than the one before, it just means that after a year the clock is slow by 1 second, which is totally different, mathematically.

For example, say January 1 is exactly 24 hours long. Now say January 2 is 1/1000 second longer, January 3 is 1/1000 longer than January 2, or 2/1000 second longer than January 1. So to calculate how long it would take for your clock to be off by one second, add up the series 1/1000 + 2/1000 + 3/1000 and so on until it adds up to 1. Or, just add 1+2+3+... until you get 1000. I did that on a calculator and it only takes between 43 and 44 times. So if each day was really 1/1000 second longer than the day before, a leap second would have to be added every 43 or 44 days to keep the clocks in sync with the rotation of the Earth. And it is not a linear function, which means that if you needed to add a leap second half as often, the slowing would not be 1/2 as much per day, it would be much less than half as much.

Answer 4

If you multiply that over millions of years, you have the earth not spinning at all - you got it backwards.

It's true that days and nights used to be shorter, and it's mainly the gravitational influence of the moon that steals earth's angular momentum as it slowly spirals farther away from us. It doesn't mean that the earth used to spin infinitely fast or will eventually be locked into one side always facing the sun (as the moon already is with respect to the earth). It also doesn't mean that the rate of slowing is constant, nor that the moon is the only thing influencing the slowdown.

Answer 5

The Earth's rotational speed is slowing down slowly to become tidally locked with the Moon. It's a process that has been happening for billions of years. And it's not slowing down that fast.

Answer 6

False...The whole thing. 5 billion years from now our sun will be so large that the earth would be no more. Then it will go nova. That will be the end of earth, and our whole solar system

Answer 7

False

Answer 8

True and that sounds like a Hovind seminar.

Thanks now i can help prove that the earth is only 6000 yrs old.

Answer 9

that the earth is over a million year old

Answer 10

You are way, way off.

Days are lengthening by about 2 ms per century. That's one second per 50,000 years. 20 seconds per million years. 20 minutes since the dinosaurs went extinct if you could extrapolate that far.