Yep, Ted was right and everyone laughed at him.
Tedd was not posting about the magnetic north pole; you are mistaken. Sorry, don't SHOOT the messenger.
OK, see my related post and don't worry I don't have anything that can shoot from Louisiana to California, at least not with any precision.
The magnetic pole has been wandering for years, that's a function of the molten iron in the earth's core.
The earth's tilt and relative orientation to the sun has also been wandering over time, that's a function of precession, nutation, orbital eccentricity and so on.
The relative location of earth's geographic pole to land masses has been wandering over time, that's a function of crustal motion.
All of these things are being monitored and modeled.
This should have an impact on all the power plants that had to be aligned with magnetic north.
"Beware young Jedi, there is a disturbance in the FORCE"
The runway in the story is "one-eight" not "eighteen." The magnetic heading of the runway should be within 5 degrees of the numbers with a zero added on the right side. Remember aviation is not a precise activity. Whiskey compasses are graduated to 5 degrees.
Ira is wrong to use the word deviation in place of variation (or what Surveyors call declination). Deviation is the swing in the compass due to it being located in a big hunk of metal called an airplane. They put little magnets in there to compensate somewhat but it doesn't entirely fix the deviation. So there is a card on the front of the compass which tells you what the deviation is for any given heading (the list is only at each 30 degrees which is close enough).
I was taught to think of the compass pointing to the magnetic north pole. But what I got from the story is that is not what the compass does. It aligns itself with the local magnetism therefore declination is more complicated than simply the direction to the magnetic north pole. Strength of the field varies too.
> This should have an impact on all the power plants that had to be aligned with magnetic north.
What impact? How does the Earth's magnetic field affect a power plant?
Actually I was referring to the power plant doing the affecting.
I can remember from a meeting on the upstart of a power plant around 1970± they were explaining the importance of aligning the turbines (three in a line) with magnetic north in order to not disrupt the electromagnetic stability of the area.
The claim was that it would cause problems with communication signals of all kinds.
Since declination is on a constant change, I have long wondered if it was cause for dead spots in cell coverage, radio reception and possible GPS problems for a few. Not real sure how long the list could be because I do not remember or know how large of an area this would affect.
I tell ya, there's no telling what the Russians will do with it once they get hold of it.
I propose a federally funded program to stop Pole Wandering! We need to keep it in our own backyard. Errr, I mean in the Canuck's back yard. How'd it get there anyway? Someone not watching it? This is a National Security Violation! Heads should roll over this!
The whole situation just may be worse than first thought
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/has-your-horoscope-changed-2439951/
That is for those that believe in that stuff
😉
I've never heard of anything like that.
What kind of power plant and turbines are you talking about?
I'll do ya one better Tyler...
How about a globally funded polar bail out program - POBOP?
We'll all come together and just print up about a googol $ or whatever the "currency de joir" and throw at the issue to resolve it.
Why would the rest of the world want to help us get OUR mag pole back? 🙂
Coalition of the ..... nevermind.
And Santa...
He's still trying to figure this one out...
