Upon completion, the Three Gorges Dam in China fundamentally changed the entire Earth’s speed of rotation. Really you think – thats a myth isn’t it? Nope, it really isn’t.
Consider a figure skater spinning around in one spot; to move slower, or slow down the skater simply extends his/her arms in from them to slow down, and retracts them towards their body to speed up. Simple physics.
Turns out, thats essentially the same thing with the Earth and the Chinese Dam.
So this thing is basically 39 trillion kilograms of water, held 175 metres above sea level. That sheer mass of water coupled with the distance moved away from the centre of the Earth has a fundamental impact on the rotation of the Earth. Nasa even calculated it, and the results showed that since the dam was built, every day lived by every human on this planet ever since is 0.6 microseconds slower than before. Not mind shattering, but still quite impressive.
