The Earth as a Timekeeper.

Manawatu Herald, 22 March 1902, Page 2

The Earth as a Timekeeper.

A problem which is now interesting astronomers relates to the earth as a timekeeper. We measure time by dividing either the period during which the earth revolves round the sun, or that in which it turns on its own axis. By the first method we measure a year; by the second, a day. The earth, according to some astronomers, is losing time. Through two causes, the sun’s attraction, and the friction, so to speak, of the tides, the earth each year revolves more slowly on its axis. The speculative question which these astronomers are discussing is whether in the end the earth will stop its revolution upoa its axis, and present always the the same face to the sun. When that even occurs, there will be perpetual day in one part of the earth, and perpetual night in the other. But there is no occasion for immediate alarm. The rate at which the earth is supposd to lose time only shortens the year by half a second in a century. There are more than thirtyone and a half million seconds in a year. Therefore, if the earth ever does cease to revolve on its axis, it will be more than six thousand million years before it will stop.