Lunar Acquisition

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Lunar Acquisition
C. J. RANSOM

For years people have been told that the orbital changes described by Velikovsky are impossible. Stability proofs, Bode's Law and other exotic theories were invoked as support, though Bass (see "Can Worlds Collide?" elsewhere in this issue) has astutely annihilated the effectiveness of those arguments against changes in the order of the solar system.

Many of the initial arguments used against Velikovsky were irrational, and it took very little education to notice that slight of hand instead of science was being used to supposedly refute his work. For example: astronomer Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin once stated that if the Earth stopped rotating, everyone would fly off at 900 miles an hour. Many people noticed, however, that without her hands having ever left her arms, she skillfully removed any reference to time. Had she included time in any calculation she may have made, she would have realized that even the Earth stopping in 30 minutes would not have led to an early invention of seat belts.

More recently, the trend has been toward citing highly complex arguments which require an in depth analysis such as that provided by Bass. Along with these arguments, it is often stated or implied that no one who understood anything about the complexities of astrophysics would ever consider possibilities of the type described by Velikovsky.

More than two months prior to the AAAS meeting in February of 1974 ' the moderator of the session dealing with Velikovsky's work, Ivan King, stated the following - "None of us in the scientific establishment believes that a debate about Velikovsky's views of the Solar System would be remotely justified at a serious scientific meeting." Evidently the official word had not spread to all the scientific community nor, specifically, to all who are allowed to publish astronomy related papers, since some recent publications describe the same type of events which King disavowed.

In 1970, S. F. Singer published in Science 170, p. 438, an article titled "Where Was the Moon Formed?" He mentioned some of the Properties discovered about lunar rocks and a previously published opinion about how these properties might have occurred. Singer then made some calculations relating to the accretion process for material in Earth orbit and for material accreting elsewhere and later being captured as one body by the Earth. He stated that "the conclusion can be drawn that the moon accumulated not in earth orbit but as a separate planet, and that it was later captured by the earth."

Later, A.G.W. Cameron expanded on this concept in his publication in Nature 240, p. 299 (1972). He reasoned that the natural place the Moon to form with the described characteristics would be inside the orbit of Mercury, and that the relative difference of the orbital radii of the Moon and Mercury would be less than other adjacent planets. "Thus gravitational perturbations of the orbits of the two bodies would probably accumulate until a close approach took place, at which a very large modification in the elements of the Moon's orbit would become possible. If the modified orbit of the moon were sufficiently great to allow it to approach the Earth, then gravitational capture of the Moon by the Earth would become possible, even if improbable."

Cameron then proceeded with an "illustrative" energy analysis no more complicated than that used by Rose and Vaughan in Pensee, I (May, 1972), p. 43, where they considered orbital changes of Venus, Mars, and Earth. The orbital changes described by Cameron require the same physics as those changes described by Velikovsky. This is not intended as proof that the orbital changes actually occurred. It is intended as more of a demonstration of the schizophrenic capabilities of the astronomical community. Is Cameron not called a "fraud" and "charlatan" merely because he has an astronomy union card? Does having the proper credentials keep a person from being a fraud? Do astronomers feel that they should protect the public from Cameron? Or, could it be that the physics involved does not preclude the suggestions of Cameron - OR Velikovsky? It would appear that the actual perpetuators and perpetrators of fraud are the protectors of uniformitarian dogma.

Lunar Acquisition C. J. RANSOM

Lunar Acquisition
C. J. RANSOM