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From the laws of motion, physicists have long calculated that the rate at which the earth turns around its axis (one revolution equals one day) has been slowing down since the time the Earth first formed. The decreasing rate of rotation is caused by tidal friction; the rise and fall of the ocean's tides takes energy away from the earth. The slowing down, hardly noticeable on the scale of human civilization, causes the length of the day to increase approximately 2 seconds every 100,000 years.
Since the time it takes for the earth to move around the sun (the length of time to do this is what we call a year, 365 days or 8760 hours) is known to be constant, if days were of shorter duration in the past, then there should have been more days per year.
By arithmatic, we see that our current 24 hour day yields 365 days per year:
8760 hours per year
----------------------- = 365 days per year
24 hours per day
The physicists calculations estimate that in the Cambrian era (550 million years ago), the day was only 21 hours in length:
8760 hours per year
----------------------- = 417 days per year
21 hours per day
But fossils representing animal life from several hundred million years ago may offer proof for the physicists calculations. A study by JW Wells, fossil coral from over several geologic time periods were examined. The organisms that produced the shells build a new layer every year, and like the trees, leave a series of yearly growth marks. Wells found that under high magnification, the yearly growth marks were subdivided into minute marks that may have represented daily rings. By counting the number of daily growth rings, he was able to come up with the total number of days per year over different time periods.
By plotting the calculated number of days per year at different time period, Wells showed that a correlation that matched the physicists calculations.
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