Blink

So essentially, the Earth is getting slower.

Which is to say, the Earth’s rotation around the sun is very (very very very) gradually decelerating, and the length of a single day is increasing at about 1.7 seconds per century. What Guy and I hoped to show with our Blink(1) project is a sped-up representation of that, with the light representing the sun, blinking every time the Earth goes by. The reason it’s sped up is because obviously if we had its rate of blinking decreasing in real time, it would take a century to demonstrate, and we just don’t have that kind of time.

I suppose the purpose of it is to raise awareness, not in the sense that it’s something terrible that’s going to destroy our way of life, but as an interesting fact about the world we live on.

 

*if the gif decides not to work, click on it and it’ll open in a new tab and hopefully function.