Re: If the Earth's Rotation is Slowing, etc. - We've Got Problems!

In Article <[email protected]> Chris Winder wrote:
> Presently, the tides on the Earth are slightly ahead of the
> moon in its orbit. This causes the moon to accelerate in its
> orbit and causes the Earth to slow down because of this
> Tidal friction. ... At some point in the future when then
> moon is much further from the Earth and the Earth's
> rotation has slowed considerably the tides raised on the Earth
> will have gradually moved from "ahead" of the moon to
> "behind" the moon in its orbit. This will cause the moon to
> slow down and cause the Earth to speed up. ... Hopefully you
> can see now that this appears to be an equilibrium situation

If that's the case, then this should be a regularly repeating pattern.
However, the statistics reported on this Usenet re Earth rotation
slowing (from the Earth Rotation Service, for one thing), indicate a
CHANGE in this pattern!  So out the window with this theory, Chris.
Something else is afoot.

In Article <[email protected]> Josh wrote:
> ...And the force `in the middle' is the tides, which can be
> ahead of the moon or behind the moon for aeons,
> nevermind that the moon is causing them in the first
> place.

There you go, Josh, thinking again.  Putting all the info together on
one page again.  Tisk.  Don't you know that you're supposed to talk
about the tides in ONE thread, and rotation in ANOTHER thread, and
angualar mometum in yet ANOTHER thread, and if they get too close
together then you start talking vaguely about "trading energies" in the
sky.