Meditation on Newton

Olivia Judson's latest blog entry is a meditation on celebrating Christmas as Newton's birthday. That big doesn't interest me. But this bit caught my interest:

Some 530 million years ago, when animals like the trilobites were skittering around, days had less time. Back then, a day was only 21 hours, and a year was about 420 days. In another 500 million years, perhaps a day will be 27 hours, and a year fewer than 300 days. Because of the friction exerted by the moon, the Earth is slowing down. Indeed, already the days are a tiny bit longer than they were 100 years ago.

I know that the moon is slowly receding from earth as the tidal friction slows the dance the two objects do around their common gravitational point. Things change. They change monumentally over geologic time. Our little messy lives mean so little in the greater fabric of the universe.