Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site mnetor.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcs!mnetor!clewis From: clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Re: more on large animals and gravity Message-ID: <1906@mnetor.UUCP> Date: Thu, 29-Aug-85 17:41:02 EDT Article-I.D.: mnetor.1906 Posted: Thu Aug 29 17:41:02 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 29-Aug-85 19:17:12 EDT References: <382@imsvax.UUCP> <1905@mnetor.UUCP> Reply-To: clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis) Organization: Computer X (CANADA) Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada Lines: 79 Summary: In article <1905@mnetor.UUCP> clewis@mnetor.UUCP (myself) writes: > 1) The moon was at geostationary orbit (22k miles? (or Km, can't > remember)): > - Then only animals on ONE side of the earth would be big. > - The oceans would be mounded QUITE HIGH on the "moon" side. > - The other side would be dry. > NONE of these are supportable by the fossil or geological > evidence. > 2) The moon wasn't at geostationary orbit: > - Tides would be ENORMOUS. > Kinda precludes any dry-land life near the ocean. > - Gravity would be less for half the "day" (presuming > the days were approx the same length - that's what IV > says), and HIGHER for the other half. > I don't think that even catastrophic evolution would support > reversal modifications on a daily basis. > - Earthquake activity would be so high as to probably > eliminate ALL dry-land life. I just remembered something. Since water ALWAYS assumes a surface perpendicular to the gravitation sum vector, we can make some rough guesses as to how high (or low) the tides would be. If the gravity was halved (say) on the moon side, then the gravity on the other side would probably approximately double. This sorta implies that the water level would be hundreds of MILES higher on the moon side. There's a Sci-Fi book out recently with the math worked out (which is what I remembered). I will post the author and book title if I can find it in the debris of our house move. I have also figgered out a rough guess as to how close Venus would have to be to have an effect of halving gravity. Venus because, for the purposes of this discussion, it is fairly close to the mass of the earth. Say, in order to verify Velikovsky, we have to halve the effective gravity of the earth. Consider the following: 1) If Venus was orbitting with a radius of 7000 miles (almost touching), gravity would be zero on the side facing it. But you'd get squashed pretty quick. 2) For the earth to have an effect of 1G, and Venus to have .5 G, then Venus would have to be approximately the square root of 2 times farther out. Eg: 1.4 * 7000. Thus, the centre-to-centre distance would be about 9800 miles, implying that the separation between them was 2800 miles or so. HOLY SMOKES THAT'S CLOSE! - you could drive it in 3 days! Obviously that's not geostationary! How would any animal have lighter gravity long enough to adapt? You mention 100's of years for catastrophic evolution ala Velikovsky. How about less than 12 hours? And, the tides would drown everything. And, the stress heating would be so high as to probably melt both planets. For the moon to have a pull of 1/2 G on the Earth's surface, considering it's much smaller mass, it's orbit would be so close as to place it's surface within the Earth's radius. Therefore, hardly conducive to any kind of evolution! Oops, I forgot, the Moon as only 1/6th the gravity of the Earth. How then could it have ANY appreciable effect on the effective gravity of the earth even if it was TOUCHING? (if it was touching, we would be at 5/6G, not enough to justify Velikovsky) Velikovsky could have invented some far prettier (and harder to disprove) theories if he bothered to even TRY out the math! If you are going to go back to the aqueous firmament idea, just guess how much of it there'd have to be! -- Chris Lewis, UUCP: {allegra, linus, ihnp4}!utzoo!mnetor!clewis BELL: (416)-475-8980 ext. 321