No, days are not getting shorter due to quickening Earth rotations

This article is more than one year old.
Published on December 30, 2019 at 18:16
3 min read
By AFP Mexico

A theory shared tens of thousands of times on social media since 2013 claims that Earth is spinning faster, which is causing shorter days. The theory attributes the faster spinning to Schumann resonance, an electromagnetic phenomenon in Earth’s atmosphere. This is false; NASA and scientists told AFP that Schumann resonance has nothing to do with the Earth’s rotation, which has been slowly decelerating for millions of years and will eventually cause slightly longer days.

“The Earth is spinning faster and the day has 16 hours,” is the crux of a popular theory shared on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and on blogs in Spanish, English, and Portuguese.

Screenshot taken on December 24, 2019 of a blog post

In more detail, some blog posts assert, “For thousands of years the Schumann Resonance or pulse of Earth has been 7.83 cycles per second. However, since around the year 1980 the earth’s heartbeat began to speed up.”

The false theory adds that the earth will stop rotating when this pulse reaches 13 cycles per second, at which point “it is believed that it will remain still for around 3 days and then start spinning in the other direction.”

Schumann Resonance

According to NASA, Schumann resonance is unrelated to Earth’s rotation. This phenomenon occurs when the electromagnetic waves from Earth’s thunderstorms circle the planet’s surface until some of them combine, creating a repeating atmospheric heartbeat.

This resonance, which was predicted in 1952 and measured in the early 1960s, can be used to analyze Earth’s weather.

A slowing spin

Ana Maria Soler, a doctor in geophysics and professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, explained to AFP that according to atomic clocks, an instrument used to measure time with extreme precision, one full rotation on Earth lasts 23 hours, 54 minutes and four seconds.

“What we are noticing, and this is a normal process in Earth’s formation, is that it (Earth) is slowing down. This means that days are getting longer, not shorter,” Soler told AFP in Spanish.

The expert in the physics of the structure of the Earth assured that there is no connection between Schumann resonance and the Earth’s rotation. She said the theory described in the false social media posts “mixes concepts that have nothing to do with each other.”

Soler added that scientists believe that in the early stages of Earth's existence, days only lasted six hours, a point corroborated by NASA.

“We can use very precise atomic clocks to measure exactly how much the rotation speed is diminishing. In 100 hundred years, one day will last two milliseconds more than today,” or 1/500 of a second, NASA told AFP.

Days feeling shorter?

If some people feel that days are getting shorter, this may be due more to the way humans perceive time as they age than to Earth’s rotation, according to a 2019 study published in the European review by Adrian Bejan, a professor in mechanical engineering.

Bejan explains that clock time and “mind time” as perceived by a human brain are not the same.

“‘Mind time’ is a sequence of images that are fed by stimuli from sensory organs. The rate at which changes in mental images are perceived decreases with age, because of several physical features that change with age,” the study explains, citing body changes or neurological pathway degradation as examples.

In Psychology Today, a publication that aims to make science accessible, University of Washington psychology doctor Jim Stone describes a few theories to explain changes in time perception.

The first is based on an 1877 hypothesis from French philosopher Paul Janet. He theorized that time seems to accelerate as we age because the apparent length of an interval becomes a smaller share of our overall lives as time goes on. “When you are five, one year is 20 percent of your life. When you are fifty, it is a meagre 2 percent.”

Another theory holds that we retain memories for longer when we are young because every experience is new.

A third explanation was published in 2016 in the neuropsychiatry archives of the Sao José de Rio Preto faculty of medicine in Brazil. It asserts that the time we take to accomplish a task and the diminution of dopamine production as we age define our perception of speed.

In short, the concept described as Schumann resonance is not causing the Earth to rotate faster. On the contrary, the planet is imperceptibly slowing down. One day does not last 16 hours as the internet theory claims, but 23 hours, 54 minutes and four seconds. Perception of shorter days is psychological and can depend on several factors.

This article was translated by AFP Canada.

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