I know that it has been awhile since I studied physics in college, but someone explain to me how a body in motion can accelerate without benefit of energy from some outside force? If anything, the laws of entropy tell us that the Earth’s rotation should be very slightly slowing down, thus the days getting longer. And if I accept that greater mass has been concentrated away from the center of rotation, then the net effect should be further slowing, not acceleration.
It would be easier to accept that the means by which we can measure rotation have advanced to the point where the researchers have noted an error in the previous observations and have corrected that error.
Please. Change my mind.
I feel the same way. Conservation of energy seems to argue against things speeding up on their own.
The only thing I can think of is an analogy to an ice skater in a spin with their arms extended. As they bring their arms into their body, the speed of the spin increases. I’m not sure I see how the earth would be doing anything similar, but perhaps through gravitational compression (or something) maybe our spin is getting “tighter” and therefore faster.
But in general I distrust science and I agree that some people foolishly conclude that “better measurements” means that “things are changing”. And that is not necessarily so.
Changes in the distribution of mass can account for an increase in rotation rate, the canonical example being the ice skater drawing in her arms.
There is a long term slowing of the rate of rotation attributed to tidal braking. As the earth rotates the ocean tides lag and exert a torque on the moon’s orbit. Energy is lost by the waves breaking on the shore, angular momentum is preserved by transfer of angular momentum to the moon’s orbit. If not for the loss of energy the earth-moon system would experience libration, as the exchange of momentum caused the earth to alternately speed up and slow down, while the moons orbit would grow and shrink. The moon is already tidally locked to the earth, if the earth-moon system endures another 50 billion years, or so, the earth-moon will be mutually tidally locked, like Pluto-Charon, but the period of the day (and consequently the month) would be about 48 current days.