"Over the course of a day, the earth spins once, or 360 degrees." So pronounces The New York Times for August 26, 2005. Hardly news, you might say. But the asserted fact did have relevance to the news – which was that a team of geophysicists had found confirming evidence that the earth's solid iron inner core rotates a tad faster than the rest of the planet: an extra 0.3 to 0.5 degrees per day, to be exact (more or less). This is possible because there is a molten outer core that allows the solid inner core to move somewhat independently of the layers above, including the surface where we live.
Unfortunately, the above background information provided by the Times reporter is incorrect, and possibly incoherent. "What?" you say. "What could be more obvious than that the earth turns once each day? Indeed, this is practically a tautology, or a geometric truism, since one rotation equals 360 degrees." Nonetheless, it is wrong.
monochrom is an art-technology-philosophy group having its seat in Vienna and Zeta Draconis. monochrom is an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science, context hacking and political activism. Our mission is conducted everywhere, but first and foremost in culture-archeological digs into the seats (and pockets) of ideology and entertainment. monochrom has existed in this (and almost every other) form since 1993. [more]
