3

Origin Unknown

pp.63-101

"In the Ptolemaic Temple of Horus at Edfu ..., there is a painting of Thoth {D.H.WTJ, cognate with \d.ahw\ and \d.h.uw\ 'to become visible' (DMWA, p. 627a); and with Strong's 6705 \s.ah.\ 'dazzling' and perhaps 6714 \S.oh.ar\ ('sheen'), from whose son was obtained (B-Re>s^iyt 23:8-), via payment in cash, privilege for the depositing therein of the cadavre of S`arah ('princess'), use of the interrment-cave (Strong's 4375) Makpelah, the name whereof is cognate with (DMWA, p. 976b) \makfuwl\ 'guaranteed; backed (scil., banknotes in circulation)'} that shows the ... deity {who is a functionary in legally recording disposition of souls post-mortem} standing beside a lotus pillar that supports heaven, on top of which is a crescent. Within the crescent is {similarly as the modern Sunniy-Muslim emblem of star-withiu-crescent} the Utchat {WD.<-t} of Thoth {more usually regarded as the completed eye of H.R}, which represents the full moon.

There are fourteen steps leading to the top of the pillar, each repraesenting a day of the waxing Moon. {NOT POSSIBLE!} On each step stands a god or goddess specific to that day." {These must, INSTEAD, repraesent the "lunar mansions", known as manazil ('resting places') in <arabiy.}

{WRONG INTERPRETATION! There are 29 + 1/2 nychthemera to a cycle of lunar phases, which would amount to 15 for each half-cycle. The number 14 could possibly repraesent, instead, half the 28 nychthemera required for the Moon apparent movement through the lunar zodiac of 28 lunar mansions. But 14 is also the number of Manu-antara-s, so that D.H.WTJ could be a generic, or collective, indication of the 14 Manu-s, or, still better, an approximate aequivalent to Brahma (who is dominant over the kalpa consisting of 14 Manu-antara-s). But D.H.WTJ is more directly similar to Citra-gupta the recorder of the disposition of each soul-of-the-dead.}

p.74

"Charles Darwin's second son, ... Born in 1845 in Downe, Kent, England, George Howard Darwin ...

p.75

in ... 1875 ... applied his mind to a compelling geological puzzle : the cause of ice ages.

p.76

... In a paper published in 1878, ...

p.77

George Darwin ... developed the idea mathematically and calculated that tidal friction is causing the Moon to gradually receded from Earth. ...

p.78

A high tide will occur not when Moon is dirctly overhead, but rather before the Moon has reached this position. ...

p.79

The reason for this is due to the fact that ... As the Earth rotates on its axis ... the Moon, unable to keep up, drags behind the nearer tidal bulge. ... At the same time the Moon pulls the more distant bulge forward, in the same direction as the Earth rotation, it also pulls the nearer bulge backward, against the direction of the Earth's rotation. ... The ... Earth's two tidal bulges ... are also pulling on the Moon. Once again realizing the nearer bulge carries the most "force," we find that the Moon is being pulled forward in its orbit, causing it to slowly spiral away from the Earth. ...

p.80

Because the Earth's rotation is diminishing in speed and the Moon is gradually receding, the month is getting longer, and so is the day. George Darwin ... determined the day is lengthening more rapidly than the month. His calculations showed that when they eventually catch up to each other ..., both will equal fifty-five of our present days. ... At that time the Moon's distance from Earth will have increased by a factor of 1.6, and the situation will be such that the Earth will always show the same face to the Sun -- as ... the Moon constantly presents the same face to the Earth."

"It will take about fifteen billion years for the Earth and Moon to achieve a state of equilibrium, whereby the Moon will have reached its final resting point.

{The Moon will cease from recede further from the Earth because the Earthly rotational momentum will no longer be transferred to Moon, which hitherto "has gradually been moving faster in her orbit." (OOM"HS", p. 5)}

And in any case, the Sun will have become a red giant long before that happens ... ."

{FALSE! It is very well-known that each star (including the Sun) commenced its existence as a "red giant" and will (in the case of all stars less massive than Candras`ekhar's Limit -- the Sun being less than that in mass) eventually become a "blue dwarf", through a process becoming gradually hotter.}

“in 1879 George Darwin came up with the fission theory of the Moon's birth. ...

We know that Charles Darwin's scientific work was guided to some extent by those of his grandfather Erasmus Darwin. Interestingly, it would appear that the same [i.e., following a lead by Erasmus Darwin's writings] holds true of George Darwin's scientific work ... .

Erasmus Darwin ... In a poem called The Botanical Garden (1792) ... paints a powerful picture of the Moon's birth ... from Earth.

Gnomes! how you shriek'd! when ...

Earth's huge sphere exploding burst in twain.

Gnomes! how you gazed! when from ...

Where now the South-Sea [i.e., Pacific Ocean} heaves its waste of tide,

Rose on swift wheels the Moon's refulgent car, ...

And roll'd round {i.e., orbited} Earth her airless realms of frost."

"We can assume George Darwin read the above poem and that it helped him to formulate his fission theory.

The theory, now defunct ..., remained popular among scientists until about 1930." {Harold Jeffreys "rejected it in 1930 ... . His objection -- that viscosity in the Earth's mantle would dampen ... a resonant vibration -- was considered conclusive ..., though I find it unconvincing." (OOM"HS", p. 10)}

{It was replaced by a modified revision of this theory : one in which instead of its being instigated by a solar tide, a star providentially passed nigh unto the Earth's surface, gravitationally pulling a large chunk (leaving a chasm which afterwards became the basin of the Pacific Ocean) out of the Earth.}

"you would expect to find evidence on Earth ... of the separation that occurred in the past when the Moon was "flung off."  ... along these lines,an English geologist named Osmond Fisher (1817-1914) suggested in 1882

that the Pacific Ocean basin was just such a scar.  

{"In this way the birth of the Moon would have resulted in ... the Pacific Ocean basin" (OOM"HS", p. 7).}

Although we we now know that this theory has no basis in fact, it proved very popular when first proposed. {"Fisher's hypothesis that the Moon came from the Pacific Ocean basin, revived two decades by the American astronomer W. H. Pickering ..., eventually became a standard addition to Darwin's theory." (OOM"HS", p. 8)}

{The only exception to similarity in composiion between the Earth's basalt and the Moon's basalt is to be found in the Moon's "mare basalts" ("CGBM") : because these "mare" (litterally, 'sea') regions are known to be all the results of asteroid-impacts of dates very much (by billions of years) later than the origin of the Moon itself, therefore their composition is quite irrelevant to the origin of the Moon. All the landing of spacecraft from Earth on the Moon's surface have been in these "mare" regions, and therefore all the data obtained via lunar landings have been quite irrelevant to the Moon's own origin. To claim (as done by L.P.), on the basis of rocks found lunar landings, that the Moon's origin from the Pacific Ocean basin "has no basis in fact", is, therefore, utterly fallacious!!}

The Pacific, after all, has an average depth of 2.7 miles and is by no means a large enough depression from which the Moon could have been torn free."

FAULTY REASONING! Though when the Moon was gravitationally torn (by a fly-bye extinct star) out of the mantle of the Earth, it must have been torn out to the depth of some hundreds-to-thousands of miles; yet nevertheless, owing to its semi-fluid ("viscous" : OOM"HS", p. 6) state, the substance underlying that gap will naturally have welled up so as to fill in the gap, therewith leaving only the slight depth now remaining.}

p.85

"What George Darwin was suggesting is that the solar tides, working in harmony with the natural frequency of the whole Earth, had caused the proto-Earth to resonate and consequently break in two. ... .  

{William Thomson, later known as Lord Kelvin, "had show that a fluid spheroid of the same density as the Earth would have a free period of oscillation of about 1 hour 34 minutes. ... Darwin ... then ... proposed that the solar semidiurnal tide ... might be in resonance with the free oscillations, thus producing enormous distortion sufficient to disrupt the body." (OOM"HS", p. 7)}

In addition to its failure to explain how the proto-Earth could have split in two to bring the Moon into being, the fission theory falls short in other ways. If the Moon formed from the same material as the Earth, the two ought to be practically identical in composition; however, they're not. Compared to {read : "Contrasted against"} the Earth, the Moon is rich in refractory substances and highly depleted in volatiles.

{This sort of objection is really quite INVALID. Geologists are actually well-aware only of the composition of the Earth's outermost surface, particularly of the land's surface, and down only to such a depth as canyons descend, and as man-made drills are able to penetrate. Throughout the depths of the Earth's mantle below that, the composition may be quite different, with close similarity to that of the Moon. The Moon, if torn from the Earth, would naturally have consisted mainly of matter praeviously some hundreds of miles deep in the Earth's mantle.}

A refractory substance is one with a high boiling point and includes ... titanium, aluminum, silicon, and calcium, all of which can be found in great abundance on the Moon. A volatile is the opposite of a refractory in that its boiling point is very low. Examples include

hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon, all of which are very scarce on the Moon."

{Because these vaporize easily, while they are in a vapor-state they could readily escape from the Moon's slight gravity; whereas they would be held in place by the Earth's strong gravity. This, therefore, is no indication of any real difference in initial relative abundance at the antient epoch when the Moon escaped from the Earth.}

p.86

"Another point to address ... is the fact that the plane of the Moon's orbit lies not within the equatorial plane of the Earth. The two are separated {are mutually inclined} by a significant degree {at a significant angle}.

According to the fission theory the Moon ought to occupy such a position since it was launched from the proto-Earth's equator."

{According to the theory that the Moon was torn from the Earth by the close-bye passage of an extinct star, however, the fact that the Moon's orbit is inclined at a considerable angle is quite irrelevant.}

"The capture theory views the Moon as a maverick ... that formed in another part of the solar system, and which having, strayed too close to Earth, was seized by the Earth's gravitational field.

{"According to See, the Moon was originally formed in the outer part of the solar system, near the present orbit of Neptune. Following Leonhard Euler, he argued that all the planetary orbits have gradually shrunk and their eccentricities reduced ... ." (OOM"HS", p. 9)}

Given the sensational nature of the theory ..., it's perhaps no wonder that the astronomer who founded it,

Thomas Jefferson Jackson See, was ... Appropriately named ... and ...

{United-State praesident Thomas Jefferson left a will requiring the manumission of all his own slaves.}

was born just outside of Montgomery City, Missouri, in 1866."

{The purportedly Confoederate governor of the State of Missouri deliberately betrayed the Confoederacy by (immediately upon its seceding from the Union) withdrawing the Army of the State of Missouri into Arkansas, thus leaving the Union Army to occupy the State of Missouri without opposition.}

p.87

Cited from "a book published in 1913 and ... titled The Biography and Unparalleled Discoveries of T. J. J. See (written by William Webb ...), ...

p. 89

that the Moon's craters were formed by meteor impacts, not by volcanic activity.

{Cf. "the hypothesis proposed by the American geologist, Grove Karl Gilbert, that the Moon formed from a ring of ... solid particles; the final stage of the process would produce the craters on the Moon's face." (OOM"HS", p. 8)}

(A brilliant chapter on the subject can be found in his 750-page tome, Evolution of Stellar Systems, vol. II, The Capture Theory.)"

"the fission theory was essentially disproven about fifty years before the Apollo program, when it ws realized that the proto-Earth could not have been rotating fast enough to throw off the Moon.

{To the contrary, "Harold Jeffreys, in England, came to the defense of the fission theory in 1917, pointing out that the different moments of intertia of the Moon ... indicate heterogeneity of rotating fluid; resonance could then produce fission even for fairly slow rotation." (OOM"HS", p. 9)}

And where was the evidence to show that the Earth had even begun ... in a molten state?

{The entire interior of the Earth, below a certain depth, is well-known (by the behaviour of seismic waves from deep earthquakes) to be molten as of now, however.}

There was none."

{Iron could not have concentrated itself in the Earth core if it had not been (at least at some point in time) molten.}

"Evidence that the Moon had once possessed a magma ... with the identical match of oxygen isotope signatures between the Earth and Moon had essentially blown it out of the water." {This "water" would be a playful allusion to lunar maria ('seas').}

{If excluding a capture of an extraneous planetary body, then this evidence would tend to confirm, instead, a fission of the Moon from the Earth.}

"the giant impact hypothesis (also known as the big whack or big splat theory) ... was first introduced in 1946 by Canadian geologist Reginald Aldworth Daly (1871-1957) in a short paper published in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. ...

Many decades later, in 1975 -- without being aware of Daly's paper -- American astronomers William K. Hartmann and Donald R. Davis published a paper in the science journal Icarus suggesting that in the early history of the solar system a large body ... collidedwith the Earth, producing a cloud of debris that coalesced to form the Moon."

"According to evidence that recently surfaced, the interior of the Moon appears to be just as wet as the Earth's upper mantle, thereby casting doubt on the Moon's "fiery birth" and, by extension, the giant impact theory.

The traces of water were detected inside melt inclusions within tiny bubbles of volcanic glass, which were brought back from the Moon by Apollo 17 astronauts. The colored glass beads, rich in titanium and iron, were discovered ... in the vicinity of a volcanic crater named Shorty, located in the Moon's Taurus-Littrow Valley. ... .  ... inspection revealed that ... some were crimson, while others ... were black. ... The lunar glass beads were the product of a particular type of volcanic eruption, called a fire fountain. A fire fountain occurs when lava containing dissolved gases sprays out of a volcano with great intensity ... ."