Talk:Moon

Liberal disagreement with Moon entry

I couldn't decide whether to erase this article and make an actual page for the moon, or rebut the points made by Aschlafly. I figured I might be banned if I just rewrote it, but this article is so silly that it doesn't really warrent a point by point rebuttal.

As it is written, this article is not about the moon. It is simply a collection of creationist claims about the moon, which belong in pages for creationism. A page about the moon should certainly include physical data and scientific theories of the moon's formation, and THEN it would be appropriate to bring up the christian objections to those theories.

In addition to the above, these arguments are not even credible. Answers in Genesis asks christians not to argue that a receding moon argues for a young earth. Point 5 is illogical on its face. It says that our solar system is one of few (Source? how few is "few"?) that has a single star. (Also, it says only one moon, which is false, their are many moons in our solar system, earth has only one moon.) The truely illogical part is that being one of these supposed few demonstrates "uniqueness." Clearly if there are multiple systems that meet the criteria, than our solar system is NOT unique. Does this argue for the existence of multiple Gods? Of course not, but no more so than it argues for one God. It is simply an erroneous, illogical, and irrelevant statement. Conservapedia will be rightly mocked for allowing content like this.

So editors, please advise. How should I proceed? Erase the article and replace it with a more thorough, more appropiate page, or will that result in banning?

I advise that you add your description of the moon at the top of the article and put the rest in a section towards the bottom. Thank you for your contributions. ~ SharonS 20:36, 22 February 2007 (EST)

I don't see any way to edit the page, but the reason why one face of the moon is always turned towards earth is because of tidal locking, not coincidence.

"Tidal locking" doesn't explain it. You'll have to justify your argument much better than that.--Aschlafly 00:48, 8 March 2007 (EST)

tidal locking can be seen elsewhere in the solar system. Pluto and Charon, for example. Or the moons of Phobos and Deimos to Mars. Using Mercury to explain the phenomena away isn't really accurate.--Dave3172 00:56, 8 March 2007 (EST)

The same claim was made about Mercury, misleading people for years, before it was proven false. Similar flaws can be expected to be found with the other bodies. "Tidal locking" would not explain the totally synchronous orbit anyway. There would be deviations greater than what is seen.--Aschlafly 01:06, 8 March 2007 (EST)

Some links and comments about the points in the article:

1. If you check the Wikipedia article for Solar Eclipses, you'll note "An annular eclipse occurs when the Sun and Moon are exactly in line, but the apparent size of the Moon is smaller than that of the Sun. Hence the Sun appears as a very bright ring, or annulus, surrounding the outline of the Moon." (there's a pic too) so its not always a perfect match; this is because the moon's orbit is not a perfect circle, but rather an ellipse: "The distance from from the Earth to the Moon varies by about 13% as the Moon travels in its orbit around us." [1]

Of course it's not completely, 100%, absolutely physically identical, and the entry does not claim it is. Neither are perfect twins, by the way.--Aschlafly 12:34, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

2. [2] The link given about Mercury also gives the scientific explanation about the moon BTW. Also, the deal with Mercury (from that article) was apparently because it was claimed that the direct visual observation of it indicated that it had a single side facing the sun; *that* was wrong. We can clearly see that the moon presents the same side.

This doesn't refute the statement in point 2 that "The cause of the bulge on the Moon to lock in its rotation remains a mystery to those who reject design."--Aschlafly 12:34, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

3. [3]

Your point?--Aschlafly 12:34, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

4. That's basically "Slichter's dilemma" and was solved by the 80's [4]

Talkorigins.org is not an authority. Your point?--Aschlafly 12:34, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

5. There are "hundreds of billions of stars" in our galaxy alone. [5] So "few" could easily be many many million in just our 'neighborhood' of the universe.

Many millions of solar systems with just one sun? You need to support that far-fetched claim.--Aschlafly 12:34, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

Aschlafly, perhaps you are not aware that the stars we see in the sky are actually different suns. They only look faint and point-like because they are so far away. Astronomers are now finding that many of these stars have their own planets orbiting them, so yes, evidence does point to many millions of solar systems (each orbiting their own parent star) existing in our Galaxy alone.--Macronking 12:42, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

All five of these points should really be dropped, as has been previously suggested. -- Limulus 04:32, 9 March 2007 (EST)

Point 5 in the article is complete and utter nonsense and should be removed. It is an opinion of one person with absolutely no relation to the moon. Can someone please unlock this article?--Sm355 12:44, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

Number 5

The existence of 1 moon and 1 sun suggest 2 gods to me (1+1=2). Throw in the Earth and we are up to 3. Now, toss in the other planets and their moons and we are getting up to a pretty awesome set of gods and goddesses. All we need is a rainbow bridge to heaven!

1 moon; 1 earth = 1 God?

1 web site; one nutcase writer = 1 screwed up view of the world.

Could someone please unlock the Moon page so a professional can repair it? The first four points on this page are demonstratably false, and the fifth point is just religious opinion that has absolutely nothing to do with the Moon.

Current Article Factually Incorrect

Again, can someone please unlock this article? The first four points are factually incorrect. If vandalism is an issue, then at least remove the incorrect material and keep a bare-bones page instead. Macronking

Errors explained and supported are corrected. Ideologically motivated claims of error are not. All I see here so far are the latter.--Aschlafly 12:33, 17 March 2007 (EDT)

Simple rebuttal to Aschlafly's Moon point #4

Your Moon point #4 that the Moon must have been receeding faster in the past can easily shown to be false in three lines. First, write the total angular momentum (L) for the Earth+Moon system. It consists of three parts: the Earth's rotation on its axis, the Moon's rotation on its axis, and the Moon's revolution about the Earth:

L = Ie We + Im Wm + r^2 Mm Wm

where Ie and Im are the momen of inertias of the Earth and Moon, We and Wm are the angular rotations of the Earth and Moon, Mm is the mass of the Moon and r is the Earth-Moon radius. Second, since angular momentum is conserved, take the time derivative dL/dt, set it to zero, and solve for dr/dt. For brevity, I'll denote the time derivate with a D, so dr/dt = Dr. This gives:

Dr = -(DWe + DWm(1 + Mm r^2)) / (2 r Wm Mm)

Third, both the numerator and denominator in this expression are positive, since We and Wm are negative (both the Moon and Earth rotate slower, that is We and Wm are less than zero, as energy is lost due to tidal friction). This means that Dr is positive. So the rate of change in the Earth-Moon distance is increasing with time, so it was slower in the past. This refutes your claim that the Moon must have been receeding faster in the past.--Macronking 12:58, 17 March 2007 (EDT)