amazing. well, i won t get too much mileage about griping about how my day was shorter? no, no. we have to speed up more for that? well, you have to stop complaining, because altogether the earth s day is getting longer, because of the sloshing of the oceans. bill, what a fascinating but this is reducing it a little bit. bill, it is fascinating and i hope you join us more often. bill nye the science guy joining me from london. it is a celebration of science. that is what it is, a celebration of science. let s check out the top stories followed on cnn. tiger woods is said to be back home in florida after a week of quote family counselling in arizona. our susan can t yotty diotti isg that woods is trying to get back to a schedule of golfing. woods has not set a date for a return to the pro tour. it is election day in texas. the longest serving governor in state history is hoping to
right now, the people involve say it is going to be too hard to measure this 1.26 microsecond shortening of the day is an estimate. sure. but i will bet you that within five years, certainly within ten years, there are going to be groups of people at the national institute of science and technology, formerly the bureau of standards and places like that, will be able to measure this, so we all depend on this stuff. here is a phone with a map of london on it, right now. right. and this is made possible, because we are able to measure time in these tiny, tiny segments. we would not be able to find our way around with sat nav or global positioning measures without these accurate time measurements. this has allowed us to understand the earth using satellite data and so on to figure out this tiny effect.
wave coming. all right. president bachelet says that looting has been contained although a curfew in concepcion has been extended to midday. earthquakes like this have not only an impact on the people, but the globe, itself. a jet propulsion scientist at nasa says that the earthquake as chad told us was an 8.8, actually shook earth off its axis a little bit. and the effect of that is that it has shortened the day by a 1.26 microsecond. now a microsecond is what is that? one millionth of a second. so the day is one millionth of a second. look at the earth when it is rotating on the axis last week. this is how the earth looks when it is rotating on the axis. what does it look like now? well, bill nye the science guy has some answers. he is joining us live from london. bill, welcome to the show.
so maybe the 24 hour day is slowing down, but we can t measure it? yes, ma shg, maybe in dinos it is 18 hours in modern time slowed down. so anything that i have to worry about or plan for? well, the practical effect is on telecommunications. the practical effect is on the satellites that are orbiting at g geostation orbits and the earth has sped up a little bit. it means that the earth will slide out underneath them a little bit. it is remarkable that sat nav as we say in london or gps we say in north america is remarkable that those things depend on special relativity. without understanding relativity, you would not get the right answer with those things, and relativity depends on time, so the practical effect is that it will have a tiny evident with the telecommunications industry has to compensate for it. it is amazing.
all right. back to bill nye standing by in london which, you know, your day is spinning a little your earth is spinning a little faster as mine is right now. bill, this is because of the earthquake in chile. would a big earthquake somewhere else offset this or does a big earthquake always make the day a little shorter? oh, no. that is an excellent question. oh, you are an journalist. it depend s where the earthquak happens. when it is near the equator, i shooting from the hip would expect it to spread out, but that is not what happened the earth s diameter got ever so slightly smaller. so it is like the ice skater bringing her arms in, the earth sped up ever so slightly. but let me point out the remarkable thing.