Subject: Re: Burn's critique on PM_Square! free energy !

From: [email-masked] (MikePoley)
Date: 26 May 1995 18:02:15 -0400

the moon should be approaching us.  
>(Duck!)
>>
>>I am ignoring angular momentum conservation, but it's probably OK since
a 
>>loss or gain thereof can be made up by the spin of either the earth or 
>>the moon...
>>
>
>It's not OK to ignore conservation of angular momentum: because the moon
is
>tidally locked to the earth, and the earth is losing angular momentum due
to
>frictional dissipation (tides), the earth-moon system must make-up for
the loss
>by -increasing- the separation of the two bodies. And i don't think you
can
>dismiss the rotational energy of the system either.

Just putting a high school physics teacher's two cents worth in,
angular momentum is one of the things which must _always_ be conserved
in any mechanical process.  The skater spins faster as she pulls in her
arms,
the diver begins to furiously rotate as he goes into his tuck.  Tidal
forces _are_
slowing down the revolution of the moon about the earth (Know who proposed
this?  Immanuel Kant!).  Let's define angular momentum as

     angular momentum = mass * speed * distance from center of rotation

If angular momentum remains constant, and speed is decreasing, then the
distance from the center of rotation must increase.  The moon is
spiralling
slowly away.  (Don't worry; won't be significant until long after the sun
has
expended its nuclear fuel.)
Italo Calvino wrote a wonderful short story about this old, old
storyteller
telling how the moon used to be so close that once a year they would all
take these tall ladders and...

Mike Poley
[email-masked]