Re: Fw: WEIRD COINCIDENCES ?

Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
19 Aug 1999 14:46:50 +0200

"James Daugherty" <daugh@home.msen.com> writes:

> Our Moon's period of rotation is EXACTLY equal to its period of
> revolution around the earth. This means that its day is equal
> to its year, which in turn means that we ALWAYS see the same
> face of the moon, and always have.
>
> To us the moon appears NOT to be spinning at all.
>
> Again what are the odds, I ask you, what are the odds.

This is rather easy, since it is caused by tidal lock - the moon likely rotated in the past, but the stretching from the Earth's tidal forces made it dissipate the rotation energy as heat. Seems to be a quite common phenomenon among moons.

> Also did you know that the word MONTH comes from the word MOON,
> and that a lunar cycle is 28 days long [same as a womans
> menstrual cycle and high tides] and that 13 lunar months, or
> 13x28days is EXACTLY EQUAL to 364 DAYS AND VERY close to a
> year??

It is probably the same conspiracy that is behind putting major cities close to rivers or trading routes. I think the original poster of the text James reposts is a bit too paranoid, and at least here turns the implication arrows the wrong way around.


Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y