#1206 Peggy Earthquake

How is an earthquake like Peggy Fleming?
No, it’s not because an earthquake makes the “peggy thing” on the seismograph skate wildly. And no, it’s not because all the dust from an earthquake clogs people’s nostrils and encourages mucus secretion, so one could say they were “phlegm-ing.”
Nope, it’s because of the physics of ice-skating and centripetal force. We all know about centrifugal force. You learned that early, when, as a child, you were swung in a circle at the end of your arms by some adult figure.
A well-meaning yet not-capable-of-looking-ahead adult figure who, like mine, failed to account for the loss of friction engendered by sweaty child hands, and who then proved, quite noticeably, the power of centrifugal force as I went flying off onto the driveway.
No, centripetal force is the force of pulling in. As when an ice-skater spins in one of those fancy moves that make normal people dizzy and faint. And as when the ice-skater pulls in her arms and spins just a little bit faster as she becomes more compact.
That’s the Peggy Fleming part of my original question. The earthquake part is this: Apparently, the most recent 8.8 earthquake in Chile settled the earth a bit. Made it a little bit more compact. And since it’s now a little tighter and has drawn in its crustal plates a little closer, it is spinning faster.
The scientist who figured this out had a very tiny calculator, because the amount of time the earth is spinning faster is 1.26 microseconds. That’s right, our days are now 1.26 microseconds shorter.
A microsecond is a millionth of a second, by the way.
Great. As if time doesn’t fly fast enough when you get older. Now our days are really gonna zoom by. Shorter days, faster weeks, quicker years, 2012 will be here before we know it.
I wonder if the Mayans figured earthquakes into their fancy schmancy calendar. If you ask me, this is just one more reason their whole doomsday prediction thing is skating on thin ice.
America, ya gotta love it.