by James Bowles

Created on: January 17, 2010

Author’s note: All credited material herein is in the public domain. A sincere attempt has been made to represent it accurately while integrating it into the overall theme. All uncredited work is from my own experiences as a graduate engineer and night college physics instructor.

FORWARD

It is axiomatic that nothing in this universe moves, works, fails, or processes but what a force has caused it. Hence it has always been that we’re unable to define or solve the problems that face us until the force structure is understood (note 1). So why is it that geophysicists, meteorologists, and earth scientists (in general) persist in laboring on energy systems? They hold no answers - while at the same time (and as a result) they divert attention and educational efforts away from the true processes and events!

DISCUSSION

This discussion is going to examine some of the laws (and the related forces) that interact between the earth and the moon that make the relationship what it is. The objective is to demonstrate that what may look to be passive - may also be perilous. But this is not going un-observed as the University of Texas is monitoring progress in association with NASA in a program titled Laser Lunar Ranging using reflectors on the moon placed there by the Apollo 11, 14, and 15 astronauts (note 2).

The moon’s orbit is governed by a number of laws: 1.) Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, 2.) Newton’s 1st Law (a body in motion will follow a straight line unless acted upon by an external force) and 3.) earth’s gravity that puts the moon in orbital free-fall.

Interacting with these circumstances is a forth and fifth law. The forth law, 4.) is the law of conservation of angular momentum (note 3). The fifth law, 5.) sees earthquake changing earth’s rotation and initiating exchanges of angular momentum with the moon that causes the moon to accelerate and broaden its orbit. It is this law that causes us some concern (notes 4 and 5).

The problem at hand, is that currently the moon’s orbit is skewed relative to the ecliptic by some five degrees. This means that the last numbers of exchanges of angular momentum were not complete. So when next there is an earthquake of sufficient magnitude to initiate an exchange of angular momentum - that is also of such magnitude to accelerate the moon such that it straightens out its orbit - and is also of such magnitude that the moon over shoots the limits of the exchange (note 6) - there could

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>