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 be dire consequences.
Science has kept their eyes turned away from the physics of the earth/moon relationship – so there are no research findings that would guide our thinking in relating momentum exchanges with consequence. Still there are geological phenomenon of immense proportion that we could examine whose cause is outside the knowledge base of current science. One called the Columbia Plateau is a lava deposit measuring hundreds of feet thick and covering thousands of square miles in the states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho in the United States. Another in India, known as the Deccan Traps, spilled what is believed to be 480,000 cubic miles of lava across the earth. Another, twice the size of Alaska and over 25 miles thick, called the Ontong Java Plateau, lies on the ocean floor near the Solomon islands.
It’d be pure speculation to relate these lava beds to forceful earth/moon exchanges – but on the other hand it would be unwise to assume they are unrelated and ignore them.
On a more certain note, in 1991 NASA held a seminar titled, Modeling the Earth System in the Mission to Planet Earth Era. The minutes were published in 1993 and are available in the public library system (note 5). Therein it is stated that there is a “near total correspondence” between earthquake, earth’s rotation and El Nino (a disruption of the ocean-atmosphere system in the Tropical Pacific).
Relating to that, conventional wisdom has earthquake resulting from gravitationally induced sliding faults. But we know without verification that gravity is a radial acceleration, and cannot of itself change earth’s rotation with the occurrence of earthquake, or produce a corresponding disruption of the ocean-atmosphere system in the Tropical Pacific
This leaves us with a very trying question. What causes earthquake?
The unanswered nature of earthquake leaves us with another trying question. Why are scientists still relating earthquake to sliding faults when it appears that other forces are responsible?
EPILOGUE
Individually we understand the nature of earth’s gravity and both Kepler’s and Newton’s laws; and we’re familiar with the law of conservation of angular momentum and the mechanism of related exchanges. But the collective concept of an earth/moon relationship based on these laws is virtually unknown. Hence it is untaught at the various levels of our educational system.
This raises a further question, “Should the collective concept of an earth/moon relationship, given its obvious affect on climate (at least in the Tropical Pacific) be a subject of climate talks – or at the very least be introduced into the educational system at the earliest instructional level?
APPENDIX
The enterprising researcher can verify the correspondence between earthquake and the earth’s rotation through publically available documents. The primary “length-of-day” data (relating to changes in earth’s rotation) is available from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California. Earthquake data is available from the United States Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center, Golden, Colorado.
NOTES:
1.) In analysis, a “force structure” is called a “free body diagram.” Diagrams of this type show the system, its parts, and all direct and reaction forces.
2.) http://funphysics.jpl.nasa.gov/technical/grp/lunar-laser.html
3.) The law of conservation of angular momentum is demonstrated by skaters who use their arms and body to alter spin rate.
4.) ref., Dr. Benjamin Fong Chao (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) and Dr. Richard Gross (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.,) and S. K. Runcorn, “Corals as Paleontological Clocks”, Scientific American, Vol. 215, No. 4, Pg. 26-33. October 1966. (offprint 871), Pg. 583
5.) Sushel Unninayar & Kenneth H. Bergman, Modeling the Earth System in the Mission to Planet Earth Era, NASA July 1993, (earthquake reference p 58 -59)
6.) We’ve seen similar circumstances with mechanical automobile speed controls (and similar mechanisms) – where speeds change and the servo hunts.
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