I'm going to take this somewhat out of order.
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Last night I posted a message here. This morning I found every one angry at me.
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I'm not angry with you. I disagree with you, but that's all. When I'm angry I tend to avoid replying, since it would tend to consist mostly of deleteables. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]
But on to answering your points.
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1) Ice-skater example.
An Ice-skater eats their "Wheaties" (external) that supplies the electricity, to cause thought, to control, and nourish muscle.
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Hmmm. Maybe this is something we agree on. Maybe not.
So an ice-skater gets on the ice and starts to spin. Then, she pulls in her arms and legs, and due to conservation of angular momentum, she spins faster.
Sure, it takes food to get the energy to get on the ice and do all this, but once she gets spinning that's it. Pulling in her arms is negligible in terms of the energy that's already in her spin. Simple conservation of ang. momentum is all that's needed to speed up her spin. No external energy is needed.
Do we agree on this?
If so, then the same applies to the Earth-Moon system. If the moon is getting farther away (and we can see that it is with the lasers bouncing off the Moon) then it [bold]has[/bold] to be going slower. Simple conservation of momentum.
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2) Questions about the evidence.
I'm somewhat confused, are you talking about the layered tidal sands and corals that were formed *long* before the Moon could have even come into orbit? I was quite sure that the first thing we needed to do was find out when the Moon arrived in orbit.
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One basic interpretation of the tidal sands, given the size of the tides they suggest, is that the Moon existed to cause them. They are too large to be accounted for by the effect of the Sun's tides. So we take those tidal sands as evidence of the non-trivial issue of whether or not there was a moon in orbit.
As for the corals, they don't speak to the issue of the Moon per se, but they do indicate the number of days in the year. If you take the number of seconds in a year to be roughly constant, then the length of the day has to have been shorter.
Any theory counter to the prevailing one should explain the length of the day in the Devonian period.
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3) Don's questions. SUCH AS SEE PREVIOUS POST
Quote: You haven't refuted (or tried to refute) either my math or my example, so I must conclude that this conversation can't go any further.
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Point taken. I don't have time right now, but I'll do the math soon. Possibly tonight.
If I'm taking you to task for not answering my issues, the blade cuts both ways.
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I have tried to explain that the math, regarding a torque, applied to an inertial mass, by a gravitational force, requires a secondary force. I thought the lumber yard thing would work. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_frown.gif[/img]
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I disagree with your analogy. When you deal with a piece of wood compared to the Earth, then you can assume point masses, since the tidal effects will be negligible.
As for the Earth-Moon system, things get more complicated. When you describe the orbit, you can treat them as point masses orbiting a barycenter. That's fine. But from the near side of the Earth to the far side, the Moon pulls differently. It pulls harder on the near side of the Earth than the far side. This deforms the Earth. The bulge then gets tugged on causing a torque.
You don't need an external force to cause a torque. You just need a difference in forces.
Imagine a merry-go-round that is not fixed to the ground. It just pivots on a spike, like a top. I come a pull to start it spinning. I just added torque.
What was the "other" force holding it?
That's not a great example, but the best I can do on short notice.
I'll play with the math later.