OK, folks, I'm a newbee to this site so if this issue has been addressed before I apologise in advance. Anyway, those creationist folks are at it again and on this site (link below) is a statement which syas that:

"The moon moves about an inch and a half further away from the earth every year due to this tidal interaction. Thus, the moon would have been closer to the earth in the past. Six thousand years ago, the moon would have been about 800 feet (250 m) closer to the earth (which is not much of a change considering the moon is a quarter of a million miles, or 400,000 km, away). So this “spiraling away” of the moon is not a problem over the biblical timescale of six thousand years.

If, however, the earth and moon were over four billion years old (as big bang supporters teach), then we would have big problems. This is because the moon would have been so close, that it would actually have been touching the earth less than 1.5 billion years ago. This suggests that the moon can’t possibly be as old as secular astronomers claim."

Can someone tell me 'cos I don't want to be one of them, but I have to admit that I don't know the answer!! Help..

link is 'http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2006/0711astronomy.asp'

It's basically a numbers game. The progression is not linear. Example:

Bob is 40 and Jill is 10. Bob is 4 times older than Jill. Wait 5 years.
Bob is 45 and Jill is 15. Bob is 3 times older than Jill. Wait 15 years.
Bob is 60 and Jill is 30. Bob is 2 times older than Jill.
Assuming an infinite lifespan, how long until Bob is the same age as Jill based on the above scale?

Someone on here has a quote from ark Twain where the numbers "prove" the Mississippi River was something like 100 feet long 400 years ago.

Others will be abe to explain the tidal braking a lot better than I can, but the basic answer is that it is not a linear change.

Edit to attribute that age thing above to Abbot and Costello. I got it off of a re run of one of their shows, along with three different ways to show that 7x13 is 28

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Umm, using the figure of 250m every 6,000 years, this still puts the moon at over 200,000 kilometers away 4 billion years ago. They didn't even bother to do the math. They just assumed it would give the answer they wanted. This makes creationists even stupider than I thought.

I had to do a search of the site to find some moon info but I liked this line:
From here
I've never seen gravity expressed this way. Is this in any way correct?

And from the bottom of the page:

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Here's a link to a quick rebuttal:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CE/CE110.html

The moon is receding at about 3.8 cm per year. Since the moon is 3.85 × 10¹⁰ cm from the earth, this is already consistent, within an order of magnitude, with an earth-moon system billions of years old.

There are two links at the bottom of that page. The Tim Thompson article discusses that "technical reader" claim in detail.

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Jim, Tog & Ronald,
Thanks for the clarification - just what I want from a forum; I leave just a tad smarter than when I entered...

Thanks..

More ammo against the young-earthers...

The BA Intro page:

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0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 ...

250m/6000yr = 0.041m/yr

0.041m/yr x 4,000,000,000yr = 166,666,666m = 166,666km

They say the Moon is 400,000 km away, so even using their numbers the Moon would be nowhere near the Earth. Unless there is an error in my calculation we must conclude that whomever proposed this as a problem messed up the math.

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Even if the moon was receeding at the rate of 3.5 cm a year for the entire 1.5 billion years, which is an abnormally high rate as it was lower in the past, then the moon would be a whopping 32,000 miles closer then. Considering that the moon is about 240,000 miles away now it would still have been almost 200,000 miles away then. I hardly see how that is touching the earth!

I like those numbers that are in the thousands and hundred places. It's just more proof that astronomy is part of the Evilution cabal run by you-know-who!

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You're forgetting the incredible amount of creationist dust on the surface of the Moon, which, even then, would have increased its diameter such that it would have touched the Earth, or maybe even Venus after it was emitted by Jupiter.

Then there's the other creationist dust, which is a very thin layer measured in cms, which proves that the Moon is very young.

Then there is the creationist Moon which really isn't all that far away, is actually just a few hundred miles from Earth as it and the Sun and the other planets revolve around the Earth, as well as the stars, which are just a few thousand miles away and the result of angelic activity.

Take your pick. One size fits all.

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That is the heart of the matter. No simple formula will suffice. There are other variables and events that have occured in the last 4 billion years to challenge a 1.3 billion year moon age.

For instance, the Earth is rotating faster than before because the poles are becoming less flat, thus our Earth is getting thinner. Like an ice skatter, we spin faster when our equatorial radius diminishes. This will increase the rate the moon receeds, thus negating the likelyhood of AIG's claim.

Interestingly, Charles Darwin's distinguished son, George , was, likely, the first to suggest changes in the moon's orbit due to tidal action.

Ancient Continental shifts and even the new Three-George [fake oops, Three-Gorge] dam in China contribute to changes in our rotation.

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The rebound of previously glaciated areas would have an effect but the effect has diminished over the last few thousand years (it's been warm out, if anyone hasn't noticed), so that can't be it.

I didn't notice. Living in Florida, it's always warm out.

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Neptune- The original Dark Matter.

The author feels that this technique of deliberately lying will actually make it easier for you to learn the ideas. - Donald Knuth

So you did notice

As Mainiacs who made the mistake of retiring to Floridia (lightning capital of the world) are wont to say,

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Nope, it's always been warm. But I'm old and the memory ain't what it used to be, so I could have missed the Pleistocene.

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Neptune- The original Dark Matter.

The author feels that this technique of deliberately lying will actually make it easier for you to learn the ideas. - Donald Knuth

Heheheheh, I got a battery back up/surge protector just for that reason.

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Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend,... - Moody Blues.

Neptune- The original Dark Matter.

The author feels that this technique of deliberately lying will actually make it easier for you to learn the ideas. - Donald Knuth

That's what I saidO boy, those were tigers when I was a kid. And the elephants...

Caught in the act:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1770

"Thunder's just the noise boy, it's lightning does the work." (Redneck song about talkin' vs. doin' )


-Richard

Whoa, sounds like you two are really long in the saber tooth!

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That was intentional, right? ^_^


I also liked the way the original Mark Twain quote made fun of the results by noting that the Mississippi would have "...stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a diving board."

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I read where there is about a 4000 year geological relaxation time for the polar regions to rebound from the prior glacial ice. This reduces the polar flatness and increases the roation rate. [IIRC, it was from TalkOrigins]

It struck me a little odd, too, since I would have thought the movement of the melted ice would negate this effect.


[I'll grow up some day. ]

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And the fact that they only show up in SI units clearly indicates that the "metric" system is also diabolical.

No, it's real, as near as we can tell. My point just was that the effect would have diminished over the years, but it is still going on.

Any ice that was floating, and melted, would not have any effect--it displaces its own mass after all. It's the areas where ice was on land, in Greenland and Canada in the north, that seems to be rebounding, and is even credited with causing the TPW (true polar wander) where the pole of the earth has moved generally towards the center of the ancient ice sheet.

Yes, we are on the same page afterall.

This pole shift and the geological micro rotation rate shifts are solid arguments against Geocentrism, I think, but I am not getting much response to this claim in the ATM thread, uh humm.

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Good! OK, now we're in different books...

But it's a sequel, so the same story.

The geological variables which alter the moon's orbital distance also can be used directly against a Geocentric claim. Why would the universe change its orbital inclination or rotation rate, or both, whenever something happens geologicially on Earth? One can not attribute changes due to the Three-Gorge dam, or the tsunami, to gravitational waves from space and still be believable.

I am dissapointed in how creationists have attempted to use this orbital recession issue. Their logic is skewed somewhat. Their argument for a 1.5 billion year limit has some logic to it but they offer nothing that suggests other things could double this limit, or more. Tides are not simple, ask the Bay of Funday folks.

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The Principia versus The Meaning of Relativity?I'm not convinced that that is necessary.Fundy

As in Fundamentalist, easy way to remember it