Word: kotelnikov
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Russian Scientist Vladimir Kotelnikov checked and rechecked the calclations, but the answer remained essentially the same: between March 1963 and October 1965, the rotation of the earth slowed down so much that the average day lengthened by 1.6 milliseconds-or about one six-hundredth of a second. The result was "extremely unexpected," a surprised Kotelnikov told the Soviet Academy of Sciences. The length of a day had increased only one millisecond (one-thousandth of a second) during the previous 120 years...
...something unusual happening? Not likely. While most scientists found no reason to doubt Kotelnikov's figures, they did not share his surprise. Records of solar and lunar eclipses from as far back as 500 B.C. prove that days have been lengthening by an average of 1.8 milliseconds every century as tidal drag on the earth caused by both the moon and sun gradually slows terrestrial rotation. The same records confirm that sudden changes in the rate of slowdown have occurred before, probably because of varying interaction between the earth's mantle and its molten core, or shifts...