Bill Hamilton wrote:
>David Bowman wrote:
>
>>Since the strength of the tidal stress exerted on the
>>earth is inversely proportional to the cube of the earth-moon separation
>>distance, we see that this effect becomes most significant when the moon
> was
>>significantly closer than it is now.
>
>True. But, as I pointed out in an earlier post, the tidal stress exerts a
>force on the moon, which causes a slow acceleration. After all, it has
>only reached 5.6 cm/year in all the years this has been going on. So the
>average rate of recession might be less than 5.6 cm/year. In any case, the
>problem is highly nonlinear, and various effects contribute to increasing
>or decreasing the recession rate. Huse is really sticking his neck out
>throwing out such a naive estimate without justifying it. Of course the
>math error makes the situation worse.
First, Neither Huse nor Barnes give the 5.6 cm/year figure. That figure was
given by Alan Feuerbach who does not believe that the moon's recession
presents a problem for evolutionists (unless you have changed, Alan, since we
last exchanged e-mails about 3 years ago.) The figure Alan gave is perfectly
valid for an evolutionary old-earth position.
Huse does not give any values or present any calculations to prove his point.
He merely states it and cites the wrong page (page 4 instead of page 1 or 2)
of Barnes' 1982 impact article.
An examination of Barnes Impact article (#110) shows the following:
1. He references a non-technical book for a definition of the Roche limit
(the distance at which the moon breaks up). He cites John Whitcomb and
Donald B. DeYoung, The Moon, Its Creation, Form and Significance, p. 41
2. He provides no data upon which a calculation can be based and merely
states the conclusion that the moon could not last for 4 billion years.
Unfortunately, one of the few creationist books I do not have is Whitcomb and
DeYoung's Moon book. If anyone can look in that and see if any figures are
given I would be appreciative. I did look at De Young's Impact #68 article
"The Moon: A Faithful Witness in the Sky," p. 3.
On that page DeYoung says,
"The moon's orbit is *stable*. ...Eclipse records show that the earth
rotation period of 24 hours has decreased by only 0.075 seconds in the past
3000 years! Simultaneously the moon is leaving the earth at the rate of 5.8
centimeters per year, or only 174 meters in 3000 years!
As noted by Loren, this is plenty of time for the moon to have been around for
7 billion years.
So, the source of this particular piece of information lies in Whitcomb and
DeYoung's book. Since DeYoung believed the moon's orbit was stable in 1979, I
would be curious to know what he says in that book.
glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm