Growing Earth and the Growing Kilogram
| Article | |
|---|---|
| Title | Growing Earth and the Growing Kilogram |
| Author(s) | James Grist |
| Published in | Beyond Mainstream |
| Date | 2019-07-04 |
| Subject area | Physics |
| Topics | expansion tectonics, gravity, metrology |
Read online | Read the full article |
Archived copy | Archived version |
| Retrieved | 2026-07-23 |
"Growing Earth and the Growing Kilogram" is an article by James Grist published on 4 July 2019 on Beyond Mainstream.
Grist takes the May 2019 redefinition of the kilogram — from the metal artefact in Paris to a value fixed by fundamental constants — and reads it against growing Earth theory, which holds that the planet gains roughly two million tons a second and that surface gravity is therefore rising by about three billionths of g per year. He notes that standard kilograms around the world were in fact observed to gain weight over time, an effect attributed to trace metal vapour despite storage in vacuum, and argues the new definition removes the possibility of ever testing the alternative explanation.