Japan:G.P.S. 8 feet off -Earth axis is tilted 4 inches more

[Chip Fetrow]

Yes, but...

The public is much more familiar with inches than arc seconds, and  
four inches in 24901.46 miles (well, at the equator) is nothing.   
There would be so many zeros to the right of the decimal point that  
the number would HAVE to be expressed in scientific notation, so most  
of the public would be lost.

Four inches out of 1,577,756,508 inches!  In very rough terms (without  
going for a scientific calculator) we are in the ball park of  
2.5x10^-9 (wish I could make sub and super scripts show up on  
everyone's machine, but that cannot happen).  A more important  
question is will Summer or Winter be longer? <ggg>

More impressive is that much of Japan moved eight feet.  I wonder if  
they moved closer to Russia, or further away.

--chip

On Mar 12, 2011, at 1:00 PM, tacos-request at amrad.org wrote:

> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 22:34:34 +0530
> From: Louis Mamakos <louie at transsys.com>
> Subject: Re: Japan:G.P.S. 8 feet off -Earth axis is tilted 4 inches  
> more
>
> Hmm... wouldn't this measurement make more sense expressed in arc- 
> seconds?  Or did we jump 8 feet closer to the moon or something?   
> I'm pretty sure that I don't have to worry about spring coming any  
> sooner, or have to adjust the polar alignment of my telescope mount  
> in my observatory.
>
> louie
> wa3ymh