OMG! The Earth's Shrinking!!!

[j d worthington]

Okay, so that's nearly as bad as a tabloid headline....

However, it is an interesting little bit of information:

It's a small world after all: German researchers - Yahoo! News

Title: "It's a small world after all: German researchers", from AFP, datelined Thur., Jul. 5, 2007. I'm wondering if more research will disagree, and in which direction.....

 

[littlemissattitude]

Okay. Who's letting the air out?

Now that I have that out of my system , is it smaller...or was one of the measurements more accurate than the other?

 

[Pyan]

Sorry, I just don't get this.
If you do this every five years, and the rate of shrinkage is an average of 1mm per year on a diameter of 12,756,274m, surely the error factor in measurement could account for the shrinkage? Is it really possible to make this statement to an accuracy of 1 in 12,756,274,000, or to within 1¼ billionth of 1%?

And can they tell if the shrinkage is a constant? What if the planet grows by, say, 7mm in three years, and then shrinks by 2mm in the next two?

 

[dustinzgirl]

Does that mean my waistline is decreasing too?

LOL

Anyways, I thought this was kind of wierd...and I was wondering what the loss of mass would be per milimeter...........