this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2025
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The three gorges dam has had an actual effect on the rotation of the earth (slowing it down by 0.06 seconds)
It's actually 0.06 microseconds (0.00000006 seconds) per day, or ~22 ฮผs (0.000021915 s) per year.
Also, technically, anything moving up or down in Earth's gravitational field while physically connected to it is having an effect, however it's usually to small to be reasonably measurable.
(I wonder what would happen if the rotation speed was changed by 0.06 seconds per day - that feels like a lot, adding up to 22 seconds per year, but would anyone except timekeeping nerds actually notice? I don't even know how to begin figuring something like that out.)