The CNN article I just skimmed about this has a very interesting science communication issue. It notes that originally the solid inner core rotated faster than the rest of the planet, but that in 2010 it rotated slower than the rest of the planet. It's not clear from CNN's article:
1. Whether the inner core was or was not observed to spin faster than the rest of the planet
2. Whether the inner core changed (relative?) speed in 2010 or whether its behavior was confirmed in 2010, or
3. Perhaps most interestingly, whether the inner core had spun faster than the rest of the planet and we happened to be alive at the time when, for the first time in our planet's 4.6 billion year history, that changed in 2010, or whether they swap rotation rates now and then.
This is not really criticism. Science communication is hard. Hell, I've probably misrepresented CNN's representation 2-3 times in this comment.
taneq 34 days ago [-]
Just another piece of evidence that the world really did end in 2012 and we’ve been in a simulation ever since. ;)
ryao 34 days ago [-]
> The inner core is usually thought to be shaped like a ball, but its edges may actually have deformed by 100m or more in height in places, according to Prof John Vidale who led the research.
Is this not within the margin of error for our understanding of the boundary?
It would not surprise me if the boundary is a place where there is no clear difference between solid and liquid, such that the solid edges of the core are always transient. Phase change diagrams in chemistry show regions where matter is simultaneously a liquid and a solid at temperatures and pressures that do not occur in daily life. Presumably, under immense pressure and temperature, the core's boundary would be a place where this occurs.
I am not an expert in physics, so take what I say here with a grain of salt.
lupusreal 34 days ago [-]
It makes some intuitive sense to me that the boundary between the solid(ish) mantle and the liquid outer core would be fuzzy, while the boundary between the liquid outer core and the solid inner core would be rather crisp. Not sure how to explain why I think of it that way, it just seems like the way it should work for some reason.
marcosdumay 34 days ago [-]
A high enough pressure makes the transition between gases, liquids, and solids all very fuzzy.
I do think Earth is not large enough for that, but it's certainly not as crisp as you would assume if you only know how matter behaves at the surface.
npongratz 34 days ago [-]
Quite an understatement:
> The core is about 4,000 miles from the Earth's surface and, despite best efforts, scientists have so far been unable to reach it.
tsujamin 34 days ago [-]
Necessary quote from my favourite movie
> Dr. Josh Keyes: The core is the size of Mars. You're talking about jump-starting a planet. This is a superheated hyper-fluid of molten iron and nickel at 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit. And the deepest we've ever been is... 7 miles, with a two-inch drill bit. Space is easy. It's empty. We're talking about millions of pounds of pressure per square inch. Even if we somehow came up with a brilliant plan to fix the core, we just can't get there.
It had me thinking this was referencing Total Recall
wslh 34 days ago [-]
Or Armageddon?
SteveNuts 34 days ago [-]
They clearly don't know jack about drilling.
robotnikman 34 days ago [-]
To put things into perspective, the deepest hole drilled, the The Kola Superdeep Borehole, is only 7.6 miles deep. Our deepest hold did not get anywhere near close to the core.
We know there is a core thousands of miles beneath our very feet, and we can only guess as to what exactly it is, a mystery beneath us our entire lives.
jsbisviewtiful 34 days ago [-]
Only making it down .19% before being outmatched is quite humbling for the human species.
Terr_ 34 days ago [-]
Look man, we may have taken the multicellular title from the frick'n worms [0], to say nothing of utterly trouncing our mole-brethren, so as far as I'm concerned we are winning. :p
I believe the deepest we've ever gotten is 7.5 miles. So 0.1875% and we're only a few millennia in!
mont_tag 34 days ago [-]
Perhaps too difficult for either Bruce Willis or for Chuck Norris, but what if they worked together !?
tastyfreeze 34 days ago [-]
Working together wouldn't be enough. They would have to merge into Bruce Norris or Chuck Willis; the ultimate action hero.
tolciho 34 days ago [-]
Or mix things up with "I'm just the chef" Steven Seagal, though regardless the movie would be boring.
veidelis 34 days ago [-]
Sorry to tell you, but Bruce Willis has dementia.
floating-io 34 days ago [-]
And dementia has Chuck Norris.
floxy 34 days ago [-]
Bruce Willis' AI likeness. Or however we are going to start referring to AI manifestations of dead actors. AI-zombie? AI-reincarnation? AI-ghost-of-so-and-so?
lazide 34 days ago [-]
Die Hard 23: The Hardening
holoduke 34 days ago [-]
What would happen with society if we find out that we have avout 500 years before our magnetic shield disappears and the atmosphere will be gone 200 years later. Would we finally work together to somehow try to find a fix or will the world turn into anarchy?
stevenwoo 34 days ago [-]
If you have some spare time this is very popular subject for speculative fiction, sometimes with much shorter time spans or lower stakes but most people working together, it can be inspiring if one is so inclined. Of course, there's not much story to tell if we don't unite a bit (there's always conflict). For lower stakes: Contact, Rendezvous with Rama, and for fate of mankind (to some extent) there's Spin, Project Hail Mary, Mars trilogy and Ministry for the Future (deep dive into each political side portrayed and maybe even a bit too optimistic in some ways), Seveneves, The Gods Themselves, Footfall. There's also the pessimistic outlook that can be summarized by that New Yorker cartoon, but that's a different list. https://condenaststore.com/featured/the-planet-got-destroyed...
danielodievich 34 days ago [-]
>Ministry for the Future (deep dive into each political side portrayed and maybe even a bit too optimistic in some ways)
I loved the book but it's indeed hopelessly optimistic. I think the heat wave that begins this book is going to happen in the next decade and the response to it would be remarkably NOT like the book
stevenwoo 34 days ago [-]
I did not want to spoil too much for the uninitiated for a not new book, but yes! The bandaid to make more pollution to lessen the local climate change effects I could definitely see happening.
rurp 34 days ago [-]
Interesting question. I think there would be a bit of both but the most common reaction by far would be to do nothing. There would be a lot of disinformation questioning the scientists and science behind the findings, and any politician trying to direct significant money towards adressing the problem would be attacked by all of the politicians who would rather use those funds for their own benefit.
I think the modern era has shown that most people put very little value on future lives or the lives of people outside of their tribe. Plenty of propoganda would spring up to justify inaction and alleviate any guilt.
foxglacier 34 days ago [-]
You make it sound like there'll be a simple right way to respond but you might be ignoring most of the practices we already have which benefit current people at the expense of future people. It's not so easy to decide when the future is so far off and often uncertain. We've tried eugenics but as you say, that's political suicide now. We can't seem to ban antibiotics despite them causing anti-biotic resistant bacteria. We're happy to wipe out thousands of years of cultural beliefs that have a proven history of survivability in favor of modern ideas that have only lasted a couple of generations. We keep on using medical interventions to save the lives of babies and allow them to grow up and reproduce with their defective genes. There's even popular opposition to Musk's plan to colonize Mars despite the real risk of a meteor eventually wiping out all humans on Earth. That said, there's also value in selfishly taking what we can for our present selves and maybe future generations will be able to maintain that standard or even develop technology to clean up the mess. After-all, humans already mostly depend on technology like clothing, shelter, and cooking but we've evolved to cope with those limitations.
lukan 34 days ago [-]
Look how we react to climate change.
nashashmi 34 days ago [-]
anarchy. we have been there before. people don't bond well in such massive numbers suddenly. They fight until there is no peace. They fight for the short term. They fight until there are no other leaders. And the successful ones bond together the fastest to fight the rest of the people. And then that bond breaks up again.
Every person fights for himself. Then he fights for his people. Then he fights for the people, but by that time he dies.
idunnoman1222 34 days ago [-]
Well, it would take 100 million years for the atmosphere to be gone. The UV would be a worse problem because it would kill all the plants.
zamadatix 34 days ago [-]
I think this question becomes a lot more interesting for 50 + 20 years instead of 500 + 200. 200 years of normal technological progress as is might already be enough to make this question a nothingburger.
duxup 34 days ago [-]
Growing up I was very interested in space and I had come to think of planetary evolution to be just sort of a process that reaches a natural balance that is "now".
These days a lot of the science I consume seems to have a better understanding of the past and that "balance" is just seen as a stage in ongoing planetary change.
Of course I thought of that evolution as just the outside of a planet, but it makes sense that the inside matters too.
It's interesting how different things can be along various stages and dynamics at play.
1. Whether the inner core was or was not observed to spin faster than the rest of the planet 2. Whether the inner core changed (relative?) speed in 2010 or whether its behavior was confirmed in 2010, or 3. Perhaps most interestingly, whether the inner core had spun faster than the rest of the planet and we happened to be alive at the time when, for the first time in our planet's 4.6 billion year history, that changed in 2010, or whether they swap rotation rates now and then.
This is not really criticism. Science communication is hard. Hell, I've probably misrepresented CNN's representation 2-3 times in this comment.
Is this not within the margin of error for our understanding of the boundary?
It would not surprise me if the boundary is a place where there is no clear difference between solid and liquid, such that the solid edges of the core are always transient. Phase change diagrams in chemistry show regions where matter is simultaneously a liquid and a solid at temperatures and pressures that do not occur in daily life. Presumably, under immense pressure and temperature, the core's boundary would be a place where this occurs.
I am not an expert in physics, so take what I say here with a grain of salt.
I do think Earth is not large enough for that, but it's certainly not as crisp as you would assume if you only know how matter behaves at the surface.
> The core is about 4,000 miles from the Earth's surface and, despite best efforts, scientists have so far been unable to reach it.
> Dr. Josh Keyes: The core is the size of Mars. You're talking about jump-starting a planet. This is a superheated hyper-fluid of molten iron and nickel at 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit. And the deepest we've ever been is... 7 miles, with a two-inch drill bit. Space is easy. It's empty. We're talking about millions of pounds of pressure per square inch. Even if we somehow came up with a brilliant plan to fix the core, we just can't get there.
> Dr Conrad Zimsky: ...But what if we could?
[1]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298814/
We know there is a core thousands of miles beneath our very feet, and we can only guess as to what exactly it is, a mystery beneath us our entire lives.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halicephalobus_mephisto
I think the modern era has shown that most people put very little value on future lives or the lives of people outside of their tribe. Plenty of propoganda would spring up to justify inaction and alleviate any guilt.
Every person fights for himself. Then he fights for his people. Then he fights for the people, but by that time he dies.
These days a lot of the science I consume seems to have a better understanding of the past and that "balance" is just seen as a stage in ongoing planetary change.
Of course I thought of that evolution as just the outside of a planet, but it makes sense that the inside matters too.
It's interesting how different things can be along various stages and dynamics at play.