Carroll: Speeding through time by the millisecond

Lately I've noticed the days aren't quite as long as they used to be. When midnight rolls around, I get the feeling I've come up a millisecond or two short. Of course the effect could be purely mental; they say time flies when you're having Funyuns, and I've definitely been putting down a lot of those. But a little research shows NASA officials share my suspicions. Scientist Richard Gross estimated the recent earthquake in Chile may have altered the rotation of the Earth, making days on our planet 1.26 milliseconds shorter.

Obviously 1.26 milliseconds is not a substantial amount of time. In a year, however, it amounts to nearly half a second. Going a step further, if we assume most NU students are 20 years old and will live out the average U.S. life expectancy of 78, we're talking about 26.7 seconds over the course of a lifetime! And that's not even accounting for the fact that lifespan as measured in years will increase now that years are shorter. To figure it out properly, you'd need calculus, which I've sworn off ever since Isaac Newton stole the framework for it from a status update I made on Facebook and published it as his own invention.

Aside from the morning grogginess I get when I miss out on several hundred thousand nanoseconds of sleep (doesn't it sound more impressive that way?), there's another reason I suspected time is moving faster: Winter Quarter is almost over. It seems like only yesterday I was cracking open my new textbooks for the first time—hang on, that was only yesterday.

Regardless, I think we can all agree quarters go by quickly. Now that we're nearly at the end of this one, I've decided to summarize a few of the things I learned.

— Sometimes a picture is worth more than 1,000 words. This became apparent after being assigned a six-page art history paper—roughly 1,600 words—on a single painting.

Although it may still be a little early to say I've learned this lesson: The paper is due tomorrow, and I haven't started yet. To be fair it's only because I'm writing this instead. Which brings me to lesson No. 2. . .

— Spend your time on whatever earns you the big bucks. Oh wait, I don't get paid to write this column. And I'm pretty sure no one gets paid to write about art history. Let's try. . .

— Snow biking is so much better than regular biking. This one is both true and useful.

Well, OK, so maybe this quarter was a bit of a bust, life lessons-wise. Fortunately I'm not the type to dwell on the past, unless you count that business with Newton. In fact I'm already looking forward to Spring Quarter. Of course it has its downsides (rain, regular biking), but I'm also counting on it to deliver some of my favorite things (baseball, Dillo Day, girls in miniskirts).

Because of an earthquake in Chile, it'll be here before you know it.

Weinberg senior Nate Carroll can be reached at ntc238@u.northwestern.edu.