But this one takes the cake: [yt=Earth is in fact growing!]VjgidAICoQI[/yt] By some guy called Neal Adams. Never heard of him. Where the hell to people come up with this stuff.
Hmm. I wonder if it is the Neal Adams who drew for DC Comics. According to Wiki, he's a proponent of the "hollow earth" theory. I think his views were part of the development of the "Warlord" comic from the 70s. That said, couldn't it be possible that the Earth is growing (albeit at a neglibible rate)? I mean, plants convert sunlight into growth. Then those plants die and get broken down into earth. Over time wouldn't all the organic matter created by photosynthesis eventually create growth? Or what about landfill? We mine petrolium that we turn into things like styrofoam, that has more volume than the crude oil it is created from. For that matter, anything we mine. Or any volcanic activity. If material leaves the core and is added to the surface, wouldn't that technically make the Earth get larger?
I don't think so; what would be working against the force of gravity trying to keep it all compacted? I suppose if the core of the Earth were getting hotter and hotter, but why would it?
It's getting bigger. Think about the untold tons of material the Earth picks up every year in the form of meteors and space dust.
Of course the earth is growing. As people die and descend into hell, which we all know is underground somewhere, more fuel is added to the eternal flames, stoking a hotter and hotter fire, and, well, you know the rest.
You're right, but I don't think that adds very much to the total. The mass of the Earth is something like 6x10^24 kg. If, say, a million (metric) tons of meteorites were to fall to Earth every year, that would only increase the Earth's volume by something like 1.6x10^-14 per cent per year. If you let that continue for a BILLION years, the total would only be 1.6x10^-5 per cent. That's just a few layers of dust spread over the whole surface...
The guy seems to have a point looking at it objectively. All the land masses do seem to fit together, and I would love to see someone debate this guy. His theory makes a lot more sense than some of the others I have heard in the past few years like global warming.
Ah... no, his theory makes a lot less sense than global warming. Global warming at least, might actually be possible within the laws of physics, unlike his earth-growing model, which would require magic of some form or other to work.
Er... where'd the water come from? Also, Australia is way too big there. That said, there are a (very) few things he doesn't mention, that would support the idea: it's known that the rotation of the Earth has slowed by several hours since the time of the dinosaurs, and when the earth was first cooling, the day was only four hours long (I could be misremembering that...). If the Earth was expanding, it would slow the day down like a spinning ice skater extending her arms out.
And yet Lionel Luthor was right. "Currencies rise and fall, people are no damn good, but they will always need land and they'll pay through the nose to get it. Remember, land! It's the only thing they're not making any more of." Well, since you brought it up, here's a better look at the Earth rotating backwards... I don't know. Lately, I get the feeling that I'm not so much being pulled down as I am pushed...
The earth doesn't need to ice skater arms to slow down. The moon does that for us with its tidal forces. The moon also used to spin like earth. But now its rotation exactly matches its orbit. The earth and moon affect eachother in the same way in that regard, but the earth stilled the moon aeons ago while the moon has not yet stilled earth. This is because the earth exerts a stronger effect on the moon than vice versa, and because the moon having less mass, had less rotational momentum to cancel out than the earth has. Eventually, earth's rotation will slow to once every 28 days, and the earth and moon will be fully tidally locked with eachother. Well, in theory anyway. I don't know if this will happen before the sun enters its helium-burning stage.
Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. The plant growth is taking prexisting matter and converting it into another form, specifically plant cells which then break down into soil again. Nothing new is being created so really a plant isn't adding anything, mass-wise, to the planet. More volume, far less mass. When styrofoam degrades (In, what, hundreds of years? Millenia?) it will return to its baser elements not having creat any new mass or matter. Technically the surface of the Earth changes, but the mass stays the same, no matter is being created in any of these processes simply because it can't be. Really all that is happening is aesthetic change to the Earth's surface. I'm trying to think of a good analogy here... Say you have a jar of glue, you take the glue out and cake it on the surface of the jar. When it dries the jar is empty and its overall circumfrence has changed as well as the way it looks (now being covered in glue), but its weight has not changed and its volume remains the same. Does it make sense?
I wonder how many tons of material we've sent into space ourselves? Probably less than 5,000 tons (hell the IIS is only something like 250 itself) Is it weird to dream of a day when humans send more matter into space from Earth than the Earth claims from space? When the Earth shrinks - Humanity Wins!
Ahhh. But show me, young grasshopper, where I ever said the Earth was gaining mass. I said it was getting negligibly larger, not negligibly more massive.
