Originally posted by Tom Kalbfus:
How is Venus supposed to 'know' that its the Moon and not the Earth? The Earth is only slightly more massive than Venus, maybe by astronomical textbooks that would make Venus the Default Moon and Earth the Default planet, but is physics as clear cut as that. I find it dubious that just because Venus is only a little less massive that Earth that it must be tidally locked with the Earth because Astronomy textbooks say it is the Moon and all moons are tidally locked with its primary. I rather think with a nearly coequal binary planet, one planet is just as likely to rotate as the other.
Yes, which is why I said that the Earth should end up being tidelocked to the Venus-moon too. It's a contrivance to say that the Earth would have its own rotation period given the situation, but it's a dim possibility. But most likely is that both would end up being tidelocked to eachother, as is the case with Pluto and Charon, because they are similar in size and mass.
Which one you call a moon and which you call a planet is irrelevant. I only refer to Venus as a moon because it's the smaller and less massive body in the pair (and it's still 4/5th the mass of Earth). But at the end of the day, they are two bodies with a similar mass exerting tidal forces on eachother orbiting a common barycentre probably about 400-500,000 km from Earth's centre.
The tidal forces exerted by Venus are equivalent to the tidal forces exerted by the moon on Earth when it was closer.
Yes, and you're forgetting that the Moon got further away and so the tidal forces decreased a lot as it got further. Venus - even where it is right now in your scenario about four times further than the moon is today - is exerting a much greater tidal force than the moon is today and when it was closer in the past. That means that tidal dissipation is much bigger today and would have been for hundreds of millions of years (if not a few billion) and it was only bigger in the past too. Which means that Venus locks to Earth and Earth locks to Venus by today - which won't happen to the Earth-Moon system til a few billion years from now.
Venus may be much more massive than the Moon, but in this example its much further away and the tidal force diminishes by the inverse square of the distance, just like gravity itself.
Tidal despinning rates are a lot more complex than "inverse square".
Its not that I don't want to listen to Malenfant, its just that it seems to me that Malenfant doesn't want this to work, because he personally doesn't like me due to his and my politics not being in total agreement. So basically what Malenfant is trying to do is be an intellectual bully and kill this idea because it is mine. I really think Malenfant ought to be more objective about things and not take it so personally.
Tom, there's no real polite way to put this, so I'll just come out and say it. You're not only completely wrong (as usual) but you're also a complete idiot, and by saying what you just said you've again proved to be a total embarrassment to the human species, not to mention blown a lot of your credibility you had out here.
Let me make this exceedingly clear to you: I couldn't care if it was you, George bloody Bush, Bill Cameron, Fritz88, Far Trader or Hunter himself raising the scenario you raised - I'd give the same answer every time, because I have the knowledge and ability to figure out how the Venus-Earth system would evolve, and that's what the numbers tell me, and all I'm doing is passing that on. Because unlike you, I don't give a toss who is asking the question.
Common sense seems to indicate that this should be possible.
"Common Sense"? Tom Kalbfus? The ultimate oxymoron?
It seems that Far Trader is more interested in who the originator of the idea is rather than the idea itself. I can explain this idea to both of you until I am blue in the face, but emotionally neighter one of you can accept this idea because I am the originator of it on this thread. I really don't care who takes the credit for this idea, I just think its a great idea. I get tired of the pettiness of Malenfant and Far Trader, they think I came on this thread to get into a debate with them, but I think debate is useless, as no amount of reason or common sense will convince them of the validity of this as emotionally they can't accept this idea.
Tom Kalbfus? Paranoid? Nah...
I'd say it's extremely petty of you to round on Dan for no apparent reason, particularly when all he was doing was trying to moderate the discussion.
But hey, carry on making a fool of yourself out here by all means.
Except his criticism hasn't be constructive, it was intended to be destructive criticism as he intended to nix the idea in the first place, so he pulls out a few equations that he keeps to himself and comes down all high and mighty saying I'm the smart science guy and I say this is impossible for I know alot of equations. It has been my experience that many scientists will try to find supporting facts to support their beliefs rather that put facts together and come to an objective conclusion. People can be really petty sometimes. I don't really need equations, I just use common sense and logic.
You wouldn't even know what half the terms in these equations mean, Tom.
But hey, I invite you to
read Chapter 4 of my thesis, and
buy yourself a copy of Solar System Dynamics.
Though wait, you're not interested in knowing how I'm getting my numbers because you somehow think that equations and reality don't equate to your "common sense and logic". Hm, I've seen that attitude from you before somewhere...
Since the Earth didn't tidal lock with the Moon when it was closer and the Earth was under greater tidal stress, then it stands to reason that a more massive object that's further out would tidal lock it either, and since Venus is nearly the same size as the Earth the same applies to the Earth not tidal locking Venus.
And you'd be incorrect, because a much greater 'tidal force' from the more massive 'moon' would be acting on Earth for the same period of time as the less massive moon we have today. Which means that the system with the two bodies with mass ratio of 1:0.8 of similar mass reaches a double-tidelocked state quicker than the one where the mass ration is more like 1:0.01.
That is my logical argument. I believe I've convinced myself that this is realistic, and it should make sense to somebody without an axe to grind.
Your supposed "logic" is consistent only for someone who doesn't actually know what he's talking about. Just because you convince yourself that you are right (which appears to be very easy to do), that certainly doesn't mean that you are correct at all. I'm sure you could equally convince yourself that your car runs because there are thousands of little leprachauns pedalling away frantically in the engine to move your car, but that doesn't mean it's true.
And you having the gall to sit here telling me that your logic trumps reality is just risible to the extreme. It's paranoid, blinkered, wilfully ignorant nonsense - par for the course from you, in other words.
Argument from authority such as "I am the professor so I am right" is a very weak argument.
Hm, so I guess you don't let plumbers fix your pipes then, or electricians fix your wiring, or mechanics fix your car? I mean, they claim to know how to do it, but really they're fleecing you for money and you can just do it yourself, right? I'd also guess that you dropped out of school since your teachers evidently aren't in a position to teach you anything because clearly claiming to know more stuff than you do so they can teach you things is wrong too? That would explain a lot about you, anyway.
