How Long is a Day?

"Mama," my eleven-year-old son asked. "How long is a day?"

"Twenty four hours," I said, without thinking twice.

"No, it's not," my son said.

"What do you mean?"

Bubba explained. "Scientists discovered that a huge earthquake caused the earth to alter its rotation. There is one less millisecond per day, than there used to be."

"That's nice," I said. "So, how long is it going to take to notice the difference?"

Bubba shrugged. "I don't know."

That wasn't a good enough answer. Since I was curious about the situation, I did a little math. One day equals 86,400,000 milliseconds. It will take 2, 367,123.29 years for all those little milliseconds to equal a full day. Guess I'm not going to worry about it too much, and neither should you.



Today I'm a guest over at Indie Authors. If you'd like to read the story behind my latest book, Ten Zany Birds, please stop by!