If our calculations are to be believed-as we do then, the Earth must be expanding radially at a paltry rate of about +1.50 mm/yr while the Moon is contracting radially at a relatively high rate of about -410 mm/yr. As a result, the much sort for energy source driving plate tectonics can (hypothetically) be identified with the energy transfers occurring between the orbital and rotational kinetic energy of the Earth. Be thatas it may, we show herein that the law of conservation of angular momentum and energy entail that the Earth must not only expand as a consequence of the secular recession of the Earth-Moon system from the Sun, but invariably, that the Moon must contract as well. An expanding Earth hypothesis is currently an idea that is not accepted on a general consensus level. Herein, we hold that continental drift is a result of the Earth undergoing a secular radial expansion. What is debatable is the energy source driving this phenomenon. Today, that the continents are generally receding from each other is no longer a point of debate but a sacrosanct pillar of modern geology and geophysics. Wegener’s inability to provide an adequate explanation of the forces and energy source responsible for continental drift and the prevailing belief that the Earth was a rigid solid body resulted in the acrimonious dismissal of his theories. To explain this, Wegener set forth the hypothesis that the Earth must be expanding as a whole. ![]() International Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics,Įxactly 101 years ago, German scientist Alfred Lothar Wegener, sailed against the prevailing wisdom of his day when he posited that not only have the Earth’s continental plates receded from each other over the course of the Earth’s history, but that they are currently in a state of motion relative to one another. On the Expanding Earth and Shrinking MoonĪstrometry Celestial Mechanics Ephemerides Planets and Satellites Formation Jahrhundert) 2.2 Von Flut- und Mondtheorien zu Eduard Suess 2.3 Alfred Wegener und seine Gegner 2.3.1 Wegeners unmittelbare Vorgnger 2.3. 3rd Edition, Friedrich Vieweg & Sohn, Braunschweig. 1 Abgrenzung 2 Theoriegeschichte 2.1 Erste Hypothesen (17./18. by great minds such as Alfred Wegener, author of Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane and Charles Babbage, godfather of the programmable computer. ![]() (1922) Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane.
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