Everyone should go watch these videos that explain this guy's theory that planets grow, and that this is the reason for the movement of the continents on Earth. He also shows how this is happening on the moon, Mars and a couple other moons of other planets.
//http://www.nealadams.com/nmu.html
It's very convincing!
My take as someone with an MS in Geology: Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Oh, my sides....
I'm more inclined to believe the earth is only a few thousand years old. At least those folks acknowledge plate tectonics.
-TM
Of course it grows.
But then so do the boogers in our nose.
Now that that has been said. I too believe it grows.
My signature is:
"God is a planet known as the Earth."
We are all one. Go far enough out into outer space (A place my son told me was that we are already in the middle of outer space) and pretty soon the earth gets smaller and smaller and smaller until we are not.
I believe in evolution. In high school I supported the theory of such as I presented it to my class and was rejected by my teacher, that,
The earth and all of our 9 or more planets (and their many moons)?, originally were giant gaseous bubbles which today are referred to as sun spots were blown off of the sun trillions of years ago and flew through space until they reached a particular orbit around the sun. Then through trillions (who know reall?) of more years later spun around so fast as to create steam which rose and then, after cooling off, fell down upon the Earth as rain.
This process repeated itself on a daily bases for billions of more years until the earth cooled off and life began.
Now some people believe the the Earth's human population was seeded here, but then through human observation we realize that every living thing, or mostly every living thing on this planet which is born of this planet (not counting the plant life) is biologically very similar. Two eyes, two ears, a nose (or antanae), two legs, two arms (or more as seen on insects and such), and a penis and vagina for reproduction, tells me that we are all of the earth.
So that is just a small part of a theory I had in High school in 1958-1959. I was given an F (failure) by the asst. principle for that theory. He thought I was being a smart ass and he was a Christian.
Other theories I formulated were regarding Planet hopping. But then that is another tale of the shroom altogether.
boomer2
Quote from: "TroutMask"My take as someone with an MS in Geology: Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Oh, my sides....
I'm more inclined to believe the earth is only a few thousand years old. At least those folks acknowledge plate tectonics.
-TM
My biggest problem is the question of how exactly a planet grows. But if you set aside that question for the time being, please explain what's wrong with his explanation of the way in which the continents split apart from one solid crust.
I posted this link in a few different places in the hopes of getting a variety of views on it.
I personally think that science is too sure of it's own infallibility, so I can look at something like this and take it at face value, not look at it and immediately compare it to accepted theories. Science doesn't like to admit that most of what is taken for fact about the functioning of the Universe is still only theory.
But if you are a geologist, then you're a good person to ask, if you're willing to explain the faults of his theory as it stands on it's own, not how it looks next to generally accepted theory.
Out of curiosity, did you watch all the videos?
I can't say I like his presentation, though. I think the sarcastic attitude really dings the credibility of his argument.
Here's two things: first, a link to an article about Adams that is informative (especially the last part). (//http://wired-vig.wired.com/wired/archive/9.03/adams.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=)
Second:
Here's some comments I've written that I'm copying & pasting on the various places I started discussions on this.
Okay, I had to read through all the email discussions linked on that page, but I finally discovered his explanation on how planets grow. And to be honest, it's the shakiest part of the whole theory, but such an important part, and he really glosses over it. That smells wrong, to gloss over such an important consideration that just happens to be the weakest part of your argument.
See, if a planet grows, then it has to be adding mass. Where does this mass come from? He says that the core of the planet is gas, and he uses the model of how positrons are generated from photons colliding with charged particles to say that solar emissions interact with this gas in the core of the Earth to generate matter. This seems to me to be an extremely speculative argument, plus he makes some strange comments: for one, he says that matter is generated from nothing, or "prime matter". But the model of positron generation requires charged particles, which means matter, right? And I don't even know that much about sub-atomic physics, I only researched this enough to understand his model for growth. Plus, at the very bottom of the email discussions page, he lists a few things that will have to change about the way we view the Universe in order for his theory to work. One of those said "light is neither particle or wave". Where does this comment come from? And why would someone make such a statement and not give any explanation?
So, while his model for the growth of planets looks reasonable (to me) from a geological standpoint, this glaringly dubious and under-explained mechanism for the actual growth of the planet keeps me skeptical.
Edit: here's a third thing:
I suggest people read through all the email discussions to which there is a link at the top of the page with the videos. In them, he responds to questions and comments emailed to him, and one can get a little better understanding of his ideas by reading them.
Two problems that set off my BS meter with this theory of panetary expansion to explain ridges lining up:
Dismissal of subduction without explaining the Marianas Trench or the Juan de Fuca ridge where the deepest depths and deepest earthquakes occur. Subduction DOES occur despite the simple statement that spreading occus without subduction. Hogwash!
The explanation of gavity as an electromagnetic attraction of the positron in the nucleus. More hogwash. Gravity is not electromagnetic. Gravity is gravity. And positrons are not in the nucleus - ever. They may emanate from a nucleus as a proton decays into a neutron (somewhat rare are the more common decay mode is a neutron into a proton with an electron ejected). Pions are within the nucleus as these are the carriers of the Strong Force that keeps the highly positive assembly of protons and neutrons from flying apart.
So a failure to explain subduction or deliberate blindness to it and an erroneous explanation of nuclear assembly and gravity.
Rejected.
Wow... snappy. And please know, I am NOT being sarcastic when I say that. It has been soooooooo long since I was in a forum or a room with people of... well, let's just say that the circumstances of my life being as they are - not that I'm complaining about my life, I chose this path - I don't generally find myself in company where there's signs of higher or deeper thought. In fact, despite the aspirations of my youth - I now live as simple a life as possible. It's not as trying on my nerves. So as I begin to this, please forgive me for sounding stupid *at any time* -- I don't keep "current" on squat and my academic "skills" are rusty at best (who am I kidding? They're in a landfill)...
On the matter of GRAVITY though... and the statement that it was not electromagnetic?
Let's see, the core of Earth (I can't vouch for other planets, stars, etc.) is - to the best of our knowledge - metal. Liquid, very hot, but metal. And it is spinning around and around very fast, right? And hot metal spinning around very fast... well somewhere in the deepest recesses of my brain in respect to physical science there is a connection that tells me that hot metal spinning very fast creates an electro-magnetic field and has a range... and for most things on this particular planet, aside from noticing that we're spinning by sunrise and sunset, we also notice that we generally fall towards the planet's surface, not away from it... because of gravity - because gravity "sucks" and so do attracting magnetic fields.
Or is this outdated physical science information? If it is please enlighten me so I can stand corrected with my kids and give them the CORRECT information.
I don't know about whether or not planets are growing or not, but I do buy into the universe constantly expanding and contracting. It makes me feel like part of an episode of Star Trek.. not that I'll be around when it comes time for this sector to collapse upon itself. :)
Quote from: "boomer2"So that is just a small part of a theory I had in High school in 1958-1959. I was given an F (failure) by the asst. principle for that theory. He thought I was being a smart ass and he was a Christian.
I'm sorry for the "F" Boomer... things haven't/didn't change much for non-mainstream thinkers. I had to do a lot of re-writes in my school days because my ideas conflicted with individual teachers', the school systems', or mainstream thought. They never seemed to have the sac to give me an "F" because an "F" on an AP student's record would have stuck out like a sore thumb and drawn attention to them. Instead I was told - sometimes politely - that I needed to re-write or choose a different topic. The very last time I deserved an "F" because I went on a tangent... the assignment was an essay on the comparisons between two poems.. The Tiger and The Lamb... remember those? AP English, my teacher was the wife of a local judge... I got an "A" for my form, research, effort... but the fact of the matter is, after I skimmed over the basic comparisons I went into a full-fledged manic rant (all in good essay form) lecturing on how - based upon those two poems - that "God" and "Devil" were one in the same, just different aspects of a multi-faceted "thing" not so unlike a cut precious stone. An "A" for a very compelling "argument" hehe.. I asked for that essay back, it was my only copy. I was promised it back. By the end of the year it hadn't been returned. A week after school was out I returned and requested it and was told that it had been archived in the library and they had a bunch of shelves fall - where it was - and all of those papers were not saved, but thrown away. I always doubted that.
I've had very few teachers/professors in my academic life who were not stuck in one rut or another... that is to say, for various reasons, were not open to beliefs or even theories beyond their own or what was mainstream. Those who were open, were exceptional... except for two.. well, one was exceptional and his thing was history (he lived, breathed, slept world history).. the other was "open" but not exceptional... she was more like a mixed up Jewish-hippy trying to fit into a culture where she chose to take a job teaching at a school in the city that was the birthplace of the KKK. When I returned years later and thought to pay her a visit, I learned that she died rather young (45-54 years of age) from a heart attack - massive, acute, and one of those drop-dead-on-the-spot types. Total heart failure. But that's just what I heard. Anyway, while she wasn't exceptional and I had seen "her type" before (because I had traveled and moved around a lot already in my life), she was a lantern to others of my age group that encountered her. She was one of the few teachers that allowed self-expression - at least to a degree. I did get "busted" for one collage I did.... *laughing about it now* because I included the text "Do I really want to?" on it - which she and other school admin immediately thought I must be talking about *gasp* premarital, adolescent sex! They made me change that bit of the collage. So I made it much simpler for them to understand. I made a little cottage style house window with calico curtains hung in it - all very domestic American-dream white picket fence-like... and upraised puff text that said "
The Big M?" (marriage - I was only wondering at the time if I really wanted to get married LOL) Morons. But heaven forbid if assigned to do a personal collage about one's self, that one infer something that goes over anybody's head! Pshaw. The irony here is that it was perfectly alright for me to paint or sketch full nudes... go figure.
I assure you though Boomer - there are at least a substantial percentage of people involved in academics who are just as restrained as so many of us felt while under their instruction. Gee... I wonder if that was a contributing factor to us deciding - after giving various school systems a chance - to homeschool?
The moon has not motlen iron core to generate a magnetic field and yet it has a gravitational field. Most asteroids are solid metal or more often rock and they have gravitational fields and are attached to stronger gravitational fields. So although the spinning metal molten core explains the earh's MAGNETIC field, it does not explain the gravitational field. As mass creates graviataional fields about themselves, regardless of magnetism.
So, if not magnetism... what creates a gravitational field? I mean as far as I understand gravity, electromagnetic principles still apply... no, to my knowledge the moon doesn't have a molten core, and I don't think it has an EM field like the Earth either... because it's not spinning at the same rate as the Earth is... thus it has less gravity than the Earth.
But the moon... and asteroids and other planets and stars and all that neat stuff out here with us... are made up of matter, and that matter - in varying degrees and depending upon the polarity of the object's atoms, has a magnetic field.
Atoms, if I remember correctly, are either positively or negatively charged... and unless I've missed something in the decades since I was in school (and there's a high probability of that), everything has atoms if it has mass...
I mean as far as I understand it, the reason we're not populating other planets is because their EM fields aren't such as to allow us to sustain life as we know it... but that doesn't mean they are devoid of EM fields...
Now I do still groove on the "big bang" theory to one degree or another because I can see shit just blowing all over the place and over the course of time (lots of time and then some more) things evolving because of.. well, what happens with the passage of time... a once inhabitable chunk of rock spun long enough to work out the kinks, get a certain temperature, and from its base matter new things began to evolve from stimulus...
Wow... from amoeba to agnostic.. hehe
But back on the science topic... what have I missed that atoms, polarity, momentum, etc. don't account for magnetism and gravity?
The moon has less mass than earth, that is why its gravitational field is weaker.
A strong magnetic field is helpful for the evolution and protection of life as it helps shield a planet from harmful cosmic radiation and solar wind particles. Otherwise, the radiation would pound away at life and would heat up and drag away the outer layers of the atmosphere, eventually stripping away all the atmosphere. THis is why Mars is thought to be so dry - its magnetic field is weak and the water was literally blown off by the solar wind.
Ah... right in sync... hubby and I got into a discussion about the atmospheres or "lack of" by Earthling standards :) on other planets and such....
So, does that mean we're really just trying to find out the one thing/mass that is sucking on us all in the cosmos?
Another point that troubles me with the theory that planets are growing is the lack of explanation of mountains.
With plate tectonics, there is an explanation for mountains.
With the growing of planets theory, the mountains are already present. Why? Wouldn't millenia of whethering erode the mountains? Also, we know from GPS-based measurements that some mountains are still rising in elevation.
I haven't actually gone and checked out the theory yet from the original link - so bear that in mind ...
But as far as mountains, etc. .. I don't think we can theorize using the Earth as a template _too much_ in regards to other planets. While I am sure there are some universal baselines/truths to apply, each of these masses of matter are still unique and individual.
A lot of our geology on this planet is the result of changes virtually at the core of our planet... but we've already discerned that not all planets have a core like this one. We also know that - so far - their atmospheres are different as well as what they (these matter masses) are made up of. Just because we have become accustomed to certain "rules" as to how our mountains developed, eroded, etc. does not mean they are necessarily applicable to a different mass.
Let's take a look at the Grand Canyon. Ever seen it? I mean in person, not just photos. Photos never really capture the quintessence of it.. but anyway, we know - within reasonable doubt - that it was created after a long period of time of the river running through it and wearing things down... of course this is applicable to many rivers and surrounding terrain. But there's the thing... we've got running/flowing water in abundance on our planet - fresh or salt (I won't even start about the ice). We know from our planet that water plays a big role in changing the landscape.... last I checked, other planets were lacking in the flowing water department on the scale that this planet has. Ice, yes, lots of them with ice... but free flowing water? I can't think of any.. but I also haven't kept up with discoveries. But the point is still out there...
Most other planets (at least the main ones we first get taught about) are either getting the crap beat out of them by solar radiation or they're receiving so little from the sun that they don't meet our standards for sustaining life as we typically think of it. It doesn't mean it will always be that way... things change... it doesn't mean it was always that way... things change. :) I just don't count on being sentient long enough to see the day when something more substantial is discovered. I think we're a long ways off with our technology, our ability... and so long as we're busy fighting one another and working against our own planet, on funding research to learn more...
My husband came off of a contract for NASA/Boeing last year - related to the space station (a joint venture)... and despite knowing that a lot of money is being put into that project, the fact of the matter is that it doesn't amount to a hill of beans compared to what kind of funding is being put into other things, including research. I have no doubts that "the minds" exist on this planet that could take us leaps and bounds in learning and exploring more... but the mass majority of the world's population is in its microcosmic thought pattern and not ready to deviate...
Indeed water is a powerful planet shaper.
As for the Grand Canyon, the helicopter tour I took last year offered a theory that it may have been carved not in millions or even thousands of years, but perhaps weeks. Indeed, the rock cut through is millions to billions of years old, but the process that did the cutting may have been very swift and relatively recent compared to the age of the rock. The evidence is that the rock layers vary considerably in hardness, yet all these layers have been exposed for about the same duration of time. So the soft layers should have weathered away more than the hard layers if the process was millions of years in the making, yet such has not been found. So the process and the age since the process must be brief. That's the argument at least.
I remember catching some news blip somewhere involving a theory about the Grand Canyon and Ice... I don't recall the details though unfortunately.
The Grand Canyon reaffirmed all of my equestrian belief in the surefootedness of burros. :)
Quote from: "winder"Another point that troubles me with the theory that planets are growing is the lack of explanation of mountains.
With plate tectonics, there is an explanation for mountains.
With the growing of planets theory, the mountains are already present. Why? Wouldn't millenia of whethering erode the mountains? Also, we know from GPS-based measurements that some mountains are still rising in elevation.
In his videos and email discussions, he gives an answer for this, one which sounds plausible if the rest were true. Imagine you have a sphere with a smooth surface, and then that sphere becomes bigger. The surface would split apart (new surfaces in the splits forming from magma, I think), and the pieces of the surface would sort of flatten out a little, since the circumference of the sphere would be bigger. If something is smooth when it is curved, then it will wrinkle a little when you flatten it out.
That's his explanation.
I meant to include this before.. but don't forget to factor into the possibilities of various "planets" (getting generic here) surfaces having been impacted by debris - like meteors and asteroids, etc. making impact... even now they are finding more and more examples of this on Earth.. so it's certainly not beyond the probable that others have encountered the same factor of being in the way of such things and getting walloped...
Gravity is the result of a planets weight stretching the fabric of time space. The denser the planet the higher the gravitational pull. A black hole is a tiny dot thats super dense and heavy and it pulls in matter and keeps getting denser and denser therefore creating stronger and stronger gravitational pull.
and yes planets grow. Meteorites land on the Earth all the time and therefore add to the mass on a regular basis.
For a planet to increase in diameter by a factor of 2 would mean its mass has increased by a factor of 8, assuming the density is constant. A factor of 8 is a lot. SO 7/8's of he earth's mass is added to the original sphere and is the cause for the shifted continents? Sketchy to me.
I have an easier time accpeting that a large meteor hit whatever was in the Earth/Moon orbital plane and fracture the single body into two bodies - the Earth and Moon. That sort of violent collision that makes two from one could surely create some drift atop a body with a molten core.
Even the Sun has convection currents within its structure.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articl ... 9EC588ED9F (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00094432-9EB9-1C60-B882809EC588ED9F)
While I find all of the theories very interesting, I guess I also like the mystery... I figure as technology advances - and provided we don't eradicate ourselves beforehand - eventually we will get to see the formation of another planet with satellites of its own that are a lot like what we know to be around us and under our feet now... and then we'll have a better idea of how our planet and moon and "stuff" came to be... and maybe manage to document it well enough that eons down the line our descendents will have no doubts about how these things come to be... of course, by then - if we don't nix ourselves - I figure we'll also be doing a lot more "common" traveling in space across the distances and collecting research data to help us to better understand.
But I remain torn between Logic and Mystery.... Logic is solid, but the Mystery seems like so much more fun. :)