Word: earth
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Earthquakes alter planetary speed in two ways. Shifting plates rearrange the distribution of the Earth's mass, causing it to bulge imperceptibly in spots it didn't bulge before and contract in others. That rearrangement should further shift the Earth's inclination, or figure axis (the axis around which the Earth's mass is balanced, which is slightly different from the north-south axis around which the Earth rotates) - in the case of the Chile earthquake, by about three inches. The law of conservation of angular momentum, however, requires that even under these exigent circumstances, the Earth's angular momentum...
...physics seems a bit arcane, consider that you probably spent much of the past two weeks seeing the angular-momentum principle in action - at least if you watched the Olympics. Earthquakes change the Earth's rotation the same way a twirling figure skater changes hers - by extending or tucking her arms in, for instance, to slow down or speed up accordingly. The only difference is that the skater does so decidedly more elegantly...
...unified by a strong, organic internal force. Appalachia is one of the most poverty-stricken areas in the United States, and Rash’s work reflects the tenuous relationship that the people of this region have with each other and the land beneath them. The importance of the earth and the communities drives each story together and remains unabated throughout the work...
Though not readily apparent, each story is, in some way or another, tied to the earth. The deaths of soldiers and their burial 150 years previous allow a floundering construction worker, through their exhumation, to survive and pay his bills. In “Hard Times” an aging couple deals with the economic hardships of the Great Depression while subsisting off of their farm. Whether providing sustenance or burial space, the earth of Appalachia plays a decisive role in the everyday lives of the people in the region, a role which changes little from the Civil...
...Corpse Bird,” Boyd Candler, an engineer living in suburbia, mentions that he “had grown up among people who believed the world could reveal all manner of things if you paid attention.” The subtle fluctuations within the earth and within the people in each story reveal some hidden truths about the depth of human emotion, knowledge, and reaction experienced by each narrator. Throughout the course of the collection, it becomes more and more clear that this influence is felt not only in the earth beneath each character’s feet...