No, because there the rate is approximatively linearly increasing.
Is the earth expanding?
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No, because there the rate is approximatively linearly increasing.
I can't put link in messages. But James Maxlow has a link to his thesis in his webpage (linked by walter).
No, there is a growth in mass, from inside (no specialist knows how). A simple expansion won't do it, because surface gravity would have been awfully high (about 40 m/s2) just 250 million years ago.
Don't judge James too harshly. He's a geologist, and the theory lays on very firm ground form a geological point of view. Plate tectonics is clearly refuted.
Anyway, James recognises that the Physics at work is unknown. But at least, this theory is rather universal because there are evidence that some moons and planets in our system are also growing or have been growing (Enceladus, Miranda, Europa, Ganymede to name a few).
At this point, all we know is that the new stuff appears inside and that there is ongoing segregation of element, and notably advection to the surface. The rest, including stating that it violates the laws of physics, is just pure speculation.
And please don't pretend to be able to judge this theory without any background. It takes a lot of time to study the scientific literature related to this theory.
I am not 'judging' him. I am simply reporting that his own spoken words, as on his videos, show that he lacks a basic understanding of the physics of the sun, and atomic physics of atoms, both of which are necessary understandings for modern geology. In other words, he speaks as if he has no scientific knowledge about relevant areas of science, and accordingly I would have no reason to believe his 'shootdown' of modern geology is based on anything scientific.
If you believe otherwise, please briefly detail (a few sentences for each shootdown) exactly how standard plate tectonics does not account for observations. Then a few comments about his 'speculations' on physics to account for his 'shootdowns' would be appreciated.
If you believe otherwise, please briefly detail (a few sentences for each shootdown) exactly how standard plate tectonics does not account for observations. Then a few comments about his 'speculations' on physics to account for his 'shootdowns' would be appreciated.
Walter,
Why don't you read James PhD thesis? If you have some background in geology, you should be able to read it with a critical mind.
As an introduction to the theory, you might also read:
"Mantle plumes and dynamics of the Earth interior — towards a new model" by Stefan Stefan Cwojdziñski, (2004) Geological Review, vol. 52, no. 8/2, 2004, p817
and
"Fossils, frogs, floating islands and expanding Earth in changing-radius cartography – A comment to a discussion on Journal of Biogeography" by Giancarlo Scalera (2007) Annals of Geophysics, vol 50 (6), p789.
You can find both papers easily by googling their title.
Then we might have a serious discussion. It's up to you.
Why don't you read James PhD thesis? If you have some background in geology, you should be able to read it with a critical mind.
As an introduction to the theory, you might also read:
"Mantle plumes and dynamics of the Earth interior — towards a new model" by Stefan Stefan Cwojdziñski, (2004) Geological Review, vol. 52, no. 8/2, 2004, p817
and
"Fossils, frogs, floating islands and expanding Earth in changing-radius cartography – A comment to a discussion on Journal of Biogeography" by Giancarlo Scalera (2007) Annals of Geophysics, vol 50 (6), p789.
You can find both papers easily by googling their title.
Then we might have a serious discussion. It's up to you.
Yes I just looked at his PhD thesis, the causal mechanism he proposes is so vague it is ridiculous. I obviously didn't bother looking at much else, but it seems the actual explanation of it is not much of the thesis, these rest is a bunch of random observations he has that are supposedly consistent with the hypothesis.
Still, apparently this line of inquiry isn't (or at least wasn't) totally crazy, I found this random Nature article from 1979 which talks about the state of research back then:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27399041/Harland, W. B. - An expanding Earth.pdf
Of course that was a long time ago...
This is not random observations. James made reconstruction of the Earth back in time using the geological map of the world assuming that recycling of the oceanic lithosphere was negligible compared to MOR accretion and intracontinental extension. Then he tested his reconstructions against different set of data to verify that both the data and the model are consistent. And they are consistent.
So, he made an hypothesis (lithosphere recycling is negligible), made prediction from this hypothesis (reconstruction of early earth models), and tested the prediction with hard data (what you call random observations). It results that his predictions are validated, and thus that his hypothesis is correct. Note that there are other independent means to prove that his hypothesis of negligible recycling is valid.
hypothesis->prediction->validation: this is the scientific method. Quite different indeed from plate tectonics that is more a scenario than a theory (interpret observations in a unified framework, but where are the verifiable predictions?).
I would not pay too much attention to the causal mechanism. It is just a blackbox at this time.
Congratulations. At least you made some basic research in the literature. There are more recent papers like the two papers I cited above.
This isn't how hypothesis testing works. Just because some data is compatible with a hypothesis doesn't make it incorrect. Based on the data they have, a child might hypothesis that a little invisible man turns the light in the fridge on and off when the door opens and closes, and this would be perfectly compatible with their observations, but it doesn't valid the hypothesis. Causal mechanisms are actually important.
I won't defend plate tectonics since I don't know the details, but at least the underlying physics is plausible.
Then it can't be expected that anyone is going to take it particularly seriously. Not if there are other viable explanations.
I do not deny that there may be some evidence that the Earth is expanding to some degree, I have read some things about changes in moments of inertia and even thermal expansion due to climate change, but these are all small effects, nothing like Maxlow seems to be suggesting.
Also there seem to be studies like these:
http://www.eos.ubc.ca/~mjelline/453website/eosc453/E_prints/1999RG900016.pdf
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...ionid=58456C607009202F0E39DE93B1BD2E03.d02t01
which provide evidence that nothing of the sort is happening.
I have one serious question. Where is all the water supposed to come from? If it was trapped in the rocks surely the water table levels must have been much higher millions of years ago, and we should see a fairly predictable rate of decline (taking ice ages etc into account). Such things should be a piece of cake for geologists to see I would have thought. Do they? Or do I have that wrong?
Also, if the Earth was so much smaller gravity would have been proportionally less. That must surely have some observable geological impact.
Ugh, I just started to watch the lectures linked previously, and seriously, Nexus? The fact that he is speaking at conferences for conspiracy theorists and UFO nuts does not fill me with confidence as to his science. Especially if that is the first lectures he tries to get people to watch.
Ok he isn't getting to the evidence, I'll watch more later, things to do now.
This is an experpt from Jame Maxlow's thesis. I would say this is essentially retarded. This is absurd.
Matter generation from the earths core? Are you freaking serious? New matter just forms there?? Yes, let's write a thesis that assumes that one of the foundations of physics is wrong. I do not believe that this is a real thesis from a real university - there is no way that this could possibly be defended.
I do like the whole 'matter generation is endothermic' touch, very cute to propose something absurdly preposterous and then describe some of it's attributes with the physics that you just destroyed.
This is hilarious....
Yes, as I mentioned earlier his videos say the same thing. He proposes that a 'pure energy' was sent from the Sun to the Earth and trapped, and that over time it is exponentially converting from 'pure energy without mass' to mass/atoms in the mantle, giving rise to an exponential expansion of the Earth's diameter. He provides no 'causal mechanisms' for these theories of physics that are at odds with every piece of experimental evidence, and contradict all known laws of physics. This belies a fundamental lack of knowledge of geology, and as I mentioned, one wonders how a legitimate university would grant a PhD based on such a thesis.
He could have at least said that maybe it was dark matter gravitationally accumulating in the centre of the Earth and annihilating into new particles. This would have a little bit more credibility to it. It doesn't work for various reasons (the main one being that if the Earth could interact with dark matter particles enough to slow them down enough to be trapped then we would have seen them pinging off the dark matter detectors long ago, and that it would take a stupendous amount of dark matter), but it takes less of a stretch to imagine that the way we think dark matter should behave might be wrong than to try and connect the other mumbo jumbo he puts forward to some actual physics.
Additional excerpts from his 'thesis':
"It is further speculated that a combined Earth-Moon, as well as each of the solar planets, originated from the surface of the primitive young Sun during the very early pre-Archaean, ejected as incandescent plasmoidal, or similar material at regular, periodic intervals, similar to solar flare activity on the present Sun's surface. The Earth-Moon and each of the solar planets in turn then gradually moved away from the direct influence of the Sun's surface temperature and gravity during transferral of angular momentum from the Sun to each of the planets. ...
...
On an expanding Earth model the core represents remnant plasmoidal, or similar material and generation of matter to form the mantle occurs by condensation of energy (eg. Carey, 1996). The mantle represents a segregation or condensation of the core during cooling, prior to chemical differentiation to form an outer crust (Figure 5.1). Fractionation of the mantle during an extended period of high geothermal gradient gives rise to peridotitic, ultramafic and mafic melts, forming a primitive mantle and crust with a surface accumulation of sialic rocks. Earth expansion during the pre-Archaean is then initiated by phase changes and fractionation of the molten upper mantle as the Earth moves away from the influence of gravitational and temperature extremes near the surface of the primitive Sun. Once a pre-Archaean core-mantle-crust is established further segregation or condensation of matter at the core-mantle interface occurs, steadily accelerating during the Late Proterozoic to Recent. Matter generation at the core-mantle interface results in mantle swell, which is transferred to the primitive outer crust as crustal extension."
Weird. Maybe I'll work on a doctorate of philosophy showing that the moon is actually made of cheese.
"It is further speculated that a combined Earth-Moon, as well as each of the solar planets, originated from the surface of the primitive young Sun during the very early pre-Archaean, ejected as incandescent plasmoidal, or similar material at regular, periodic intervals, similar to solar flare activity on the present Sun's surface. The Earth-Moon and each of the solar planets in turn then gradually moved away from the direct influence of the Sun's surface temperature and gravity during transferral of angular momentum from the Sun to each of the planets. ...
...
On an expanding Earth model the core represents remnant plasmoidal, or similar material and generation of matter to form the mantle occurs by condensation of energy (eg. Carey, 1996). The mantle represents a segregation or condensation of the core during cooling, prior to chemical differentiation to form an outer crust (Figure 5.1). Fractionation of the mantle during an extended period of high geothermal gradient gives rise to peridotitic, ultramafic and mafic melts, forming a primitive mantle and crust with a surface accumulation of sialic rocks. Earth expansion during the pre-Archaean is then initiated by phase changes and fractionation of the molten upper mantle as the Earth moves away from the influence of gravitational and temperature extremes near the surface of the primitive Sun. Once a pre-Archaean core-mantle-crust is established further segregation or condensation of matter at the core-mantle interface occurs, steadily accelerating during the Late Proterozoic to Recent. Matter generation at the core-mantle interface results in mantle swell, which is transferred to the primitive outer crust as crustal extension."
Weird. Maybe I'll work on a doctorate of philosophy showing that the moon is actually made of cheese.
Why is there no evidence of an expanding earth in tidal rythmite data?
How does this hypothesis explain Wadati-Benioff zones?
This is just...
Wow...
I mean seriously, you're going with that?
because earth is itself a single living organism like a tree and has been germinated from single meteoroid containing amino acid and biological chemistry (seed of planet). and this seed has been produced by an old cosmic body. one planet is a result of one meteoroid (seed of planet) as one tree is a result of one seed only.
if the expanding earth conjecture (it barely qualifies as a hypothesis let alone a theory) is correct why does it seems to exclusively attract cranks?
one great (and hilariously entertaining) example of is found in a debate we held on these very boards and makes for excellent reading
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=86898
a similar debate both in content, style, and belly laugh quotient can be found here:
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/?s=neal+adams
one great (and hilariously entertaining) example of is found in a debate we held on these very boards and makes for excellent reading
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=86898
a similar debate both in content, style, and belly laugh quotient can be found here:
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/?s=neal+adams
Your analogy is incorrect. Maxlow's hypothesis is falsifiable using independent data. Your little invisible man is not falsifiable. I'm a bit surprise that you do not understand the difference. After all, this is basic epistemology.
Of course they are, but they are not always at hand, and theories can work beautifully without a causal mechanism.
For example, do you know how matter/energy bends spacetime? I don't and nobody else knows. So we don't have a causal mechanism for general relativity, though it is a very successful theory.
That is a reasonable attitude. You should adopt the same attitude regarding the expanding Earth theory. One must have a serious background in geodynamics to really understand why it is valid and how it works.
Regarding the first paper: I know Williams work quite well. He makes two fundamental assumptions: Earth's orbit never changed or in other words, the duration of a Earth's revolution period never changed, the gained matter has zero momentum. Both are highly questionable in the framework of the growing earth theory.
Regarding the second paper: these palaeomagnetic studies always assume a perfectly radial growth, while the growth is asymmetrical (larger in the southern hemisphere). And sampling location are always critical. They are often located on pole migration path (especially in Africa) which also bias the calculations. So they are not very solid evidence of an absence of growth, whereas seafloor datations allow direct quantification of the growth.
Water is coming from the mantle. There is much more water in the mantle than in the oceans. But the real question is where does the mantle (its components) come from? And this question has no answers yet.
It depends on the average density of the planet. Thought I think is is reasonable to assume that the density was never much higher than the current density. So I expect that surface decreases with time, being proportional to the radius at a constant density. So surface gravity would have been half of todays, about 250 millions years ago (half radius). I think evidence have to be found in palaeontological records (like gigantism difficult to explain, even with high oxygen levels).
Agree. This was a very poor choice. The best way to be labeled as pseudoscientist right away. But James was also offered to write an article in their review, So I guess it was a kind of package.
This is an experpt from Jame Maxlow's thesis. I would say this is essentially retarded. This is absurd.
Matter generation from the earths core? Are you freaking serious? New matter just forms there?? Yes, let's write a thesis that assumes that one of the foundations of physics is wrong. I do not believe that this is a real thesis from a real university - there is no way that this could possibly be defended.
I do like the whole 'matter generation is endothermic' touch, very cute to propose something absurdly preposterous and then describe some of it's attributes with the physics that you just destroyed.
This is hilarious....
I agree, there is no known physics that can explain the growth at this time and what James has been doing is just baseless naive speculations. But there must a mechanism to explain hat growth in mass, because it is what is observed. So by inference, a physical explanation must exists.