The Conservation of Angular Momentum

(The question regarding global warming is answered)

By Curtis E. Stevens - October 8, 2021

The scientific community is currently focused on the composition of the atmosphere as the major cause of global warming.  There are however other forces that can create the same effect.  This essay focuses on the conservation of angular momentum, another cause of global warming.

The earth is like a giant spinning top that is travelling around the sun. The radius of the earth is approximately 4,000 miles.  The laws of physics show that when a force is applied to a spinning top, that the top will precess at 90 degrees from the direction the force is applied. As the earth travels around the sun, this precession causes among other things, the seasons. In the figure shown below, notice how the axis of the earth relative to the sun is shifted, this shifting is precession. The earth’s precession is caused by the drag of space particles hitting the leading edge of the earth as it goes around the sun.

Since the earth’s axis is constantly moving, it is common for the climate to change over time, as archeologists have shown.  These changes may not be gradual; instead, they may reach thresholds that cause sudden shifts to occur.  This force alone can account for the climate change we see today.

There are some practices/activities that may exaggerate this process. Just as the earth precesses as a result of drag in the direction of its travel around the sun, spinning devices (i.e., gyroscopes) also precess at 90 degrees to the direction of the spin of the planet.  This precession is also a force that affects the angle of the earth’s axis.  There is one source of gyroscopes that has been increasing in production every year for the last 40+ years, the common hard disk drive (HDD) found in computers.  All hardisk drives rotate in the same direction.  The mass of these devices has been increasing over time due to our society’s lust for storage space.  We place bigger motors in these devices to deal with the increased mass. Each time we increase the mass of the HDD. The axis of the earth becomes more unstable.  This in turn makes the jetstream become unstable and start moving in abnormal patterns, just as we are seeing today.

Some might say that we should discontinue making HDDs and switch to all SSD storage.  This would be a big mistake.  SSD storage gets much hotter than HDD and consumes more power. This would increase global warming at a greater rate…

So, what can we do to help this horror?  A new mandate needs to be created.  This mandate needs to require that half of all spinning devices spin in the opposite direction.  You as an individual can help save the planet by mounting half of your HDD’s upside down.