Growing Earth / Expanding Earth Hypothesis (Earth Getting Bigger?)

MrRING

MrRING

Android Futureman
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This is an interesting theory that comics great Neal Adams is researching.

Here's the main page about it:

nealadams.com/nmu.html
Link is dead. The MIA webpage can be accessed via the Wayback Machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20050331022054/http://www.nealadams.com/nmu.html

The introductory description of Adams' questions and suggestions:

https://web.archive.org/web/20050331012956/http://www.nealadams.com/EarthProject/newest.html

And I don't want to directly quote any of his theories, but it certainly seems like an interesting matter for discussion.

I know there are some geologists on board, any comment?
 
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I think there's a thread somewhere on this subject....
 
I can't believe I'm replying to a Comic Strip...!

I'm still not really sure what his problem is. Perhaps it's connected with the theory that a lot of the Earth's mantle got blasted into space by an impact with a Mars size body, and then coalesced to form the moon? (In the early formation of the solar system, many billion years ago.)

Anyhow, the Earth is growing (albeit slowly) - several tons of meteoritic dust land on the planet every day, along with larger lumps, every few million years or so...
 
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I detect a merge coming on! :D

Seems like it makes sense of Pangea (in the intro essay from Adams) but any idea on why people shy away from it? Is it's because, for the Earth to have expanded so much from the initial cooling, that science can't account for the difference?
 
Mr. R.I.N.G. said:
but any idea on why people shy away from it? Is it's because, for the Earth to have expanded so much from the initial cooling, that science can't account for the difference?
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Well, science is a very lazy animal, I think we all know, and anything that causes them more work, or the possibility of having to rewrite their theories, generally gets put off to the side until they have no choice but to confront it when, for one reason or another, it can no longer be ignored. So I'd say your initial take on it is right: science can't account for it at the moment (whether due to conflicts with the continental drift theory or its inability to account for the cooling differential that you mentioned) and so it gets swept off to the side, to be ignored. Which particular anomaly has them curiously silent on the growing earth theory, I can't say.

Polterdog.
 
Well, science is a very lazy animal, I think we all know, and anything that causes them more work, or the possibility of having to rewrite their theories, generally gets put off to the side until they have no choice but to confront it when, for one reason or another, it can no longer be ignored.
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Science is not as 'lazy' as some of its critics are, in my experience.

The 'pop' critics often don't really understand science in depth, and come up with half-baked theories dreamed up in ten minutes in the bath, while discounting the millions of man-hours that real scientists have put in constructing, testing, and rebuilding their theories to try to get the best match with experience.

The harshest critics of science are scientists themselves, who know and understand most of the relevent facts.

Of course, there are revolutions in science (the very word comes from the Copernican theory of the revolution of the planets about the sun, not about the Earth), and these may well be started by relative outsiders to the mainstream (Einstein is a good example), but nevertheless these mavericks were very learned and had a good grip of their subjects.

Science is a work in progress - it proceeds steadily at times, and in fits and starts at other times. We'll probably never know everything, and what we think we know may be overturned tomorrow. Cosmology is in a huge state of confusion at the moment, but more research and maybe new ideas might eventually make sense of it - many more man-hours needed!

Science is not lazy - it's just that decidedly better facts and ideas are needed before science will abandon an older, tried-and-tested theory.
 
I had considered the idea that Earth was much smaller at some time in the past, as it would explain how all the dinosaurs and other creatures had grown so large. He has a few good ideas there.
 
rynner said:
The 'pop' critics often don't really understand science in depth, and come up with half-baked theories dreamed up in ten minutes in the bath, while discounting the millions of man-hours that real scientists have put in constructing, testing, and rebuilding their theories to try to get the best match with experience.
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While you're right that scientists have a lot to protect -- and shouldn't open the floodgates to every new theory that comes down the pike -- there are far too many examples of them casting a blind eye to evidence that don't fit in with their established norms and so is conviently swept under the carpet. This "growing earth" theory is just one of many examples. Without getting off tangent too much, one of my favourites is The Burgess Shale fossils -- marine animal fossils embedded in rock strata that pre-dates the "established" appearance of life on this planet by billions of years. Look into that sometime and tell me there's not something, ahem, fishy there.

Again, without turning this into a laundry list of where science has dropped the ball -- or will even admit to a game being played in the first place -- I stand by my statement: science is lazy, if not outright corrupt in some, if not most, instances. Like a mother lion protecting her cubs, if something is threatening the established norms or status quo, and deems to raise uncomfortable questions, it tends to disappear very quickly.

Polterdog.
 
I would dispute that, for the simple fact that careers in science are made and advanced by coming up with new theories, data and interpretation (same thing in the humanities, really, but "new post-structuralist analysis of gender and labour in 20th c. Canadian historiography" seldom makes the news wire for some reason).
 
Is it possible that both sides are right, in that science both looks for innovation and new ideas, but only as long as these new ideas don't challenge deeply held beliefs? In other words, the science behind this "growing earth" theory would violate too many other ideas about the earth, so people have a hard time swallowing it as even being possible? Or the still-current disbelief in some orthodox corners about homo florensis...

Interesting debate...
 
Mr. R.I.N.G. said:
Is it possible that both sides are right, in that science both looks for innovation and new ideas, but only as long as these new ideas don't challenge deeply held beliefs? In other words, the science behind this "growing earth" theory would violate too many other ideas about the earth, so people have a hard time swallowing it as even being possible? Or the still-current disbelief in some orthodox corners about homo florensis...
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This is my take on it, exactly.

I have no doubt that science advances (I mean, obviously it does), but only when it suits its needs to do so. I mean, seriously, take a look at the history of science sometime and you'll see that there are far, far, too many examples of scientific inquiry (and new theories) being quashed because they threaten to uproot all that has come before. In this example, the growing earth doesn't fit the paradigm so...

In other words, lazy (or corrupt, take your pick).

Polterdog.
 
maybe in the past time ran faster,making things seem smaller relativly speaking lol.
no really could time be faster in the past?
 
The trouble with that question is that no-one knows what time is really. It is so central to our perception of everything that it's very hard to think outside it. Given that the rate we move through time is dependant on perception and memory it is hard to imagine how it would behave in our absence...
 
just had a thought but if the earth is growing surly it would have to be that matter is being converted from energy at the earths core..wouldnt it?
the only snag being just what is the scorce of all the energy.
why cant it be time thats creating all the energy?
:?:
 
Tin Finger said:
no really could time be faster in the past?
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Well, the length of the terran day, in the Neoproterozoic era (620 million years ago), was, apparently, only about 22 hours long (according to one source I consulted) so, from a terran perspective, time WAS faster in the past but I suspect that isn't the answer you're looking for.

I'm almost certain that quantum mechanics has something to say about this in its Inflationary Universe model but, well, don't quote me on that as, for the life of me, I can't find any reference to it (and I'm a bit sleep-deprived at the moment, so I could very well be imagining things.) :)

Still, that might be fertile grounds for you to research. Seems to me that a highly compacted universe would have different rules in regards to the way time operates within it but...*shrugs*

Polterdog.
 
Without getting off tangent too much, one of my favourites is The Burgess Shale fossils -- marine animal fossils embedded in rock strata that pre-dates the "established" appearance of life on this planet by billions of years. Look into that sometime and tell me there's not something, ahem, fishy there.
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Bollocks. Complete and utter.

Burgess Shale dates from the Middle Cambrian and are approximately 505million yeras old. Dunno where you get your 'billions' from. Got a reference?

If you're gonna use an example to prove how 'lazy' science is, at least use one that's got some basis in reality.
 
but not knowing if time ran faster in the past,or just the earths spin was faster making the days shorter,makes it impossible to know for sure just how old anything really is.. :?:
 
Physick said:
Bollocks. Complete and utter...If you're gonna use an example to prove how 'lazy' science is, at least use one that's got some basis in reality.
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I think, Physick, you misunderstood what I was saying.

What I was trying to elucidate, and which you failed to understand, was the puzzle that the Shale FOSSILS presented. Some commentators have suggested that with the miraculously preserved (and vast assemblage) of soft-bodied sea creatures, especially arthropods, fossilized within the Shale, present a problem to evolutionary biologists. Few of the specimens can be easily related to groups now in existence, which led some of these scientists, to push back the time for the origin of life by a billion years or so (in other words, an earlier creation point) in order for the theory of evolution to still be credible. Read my post again. I wasn't arguing the strata was billions of years old I was arguing that the theories that came out of trying to explain the sudden appearance of these animals, from out of nowhere, pushed the origins of life back in order to account for it. And, incidentally, I'm not saying this is the right answer either. I'm saying, look at how science handled it in order to preserve that most 'sacred cow' of theirs, evolution.

As I said, lazy, lazy, lazy. God forbid they actually admit that there's a problem with their Big Picture.

Polterdog.

P. S. By the way, the Burgess Shale is about 550 million years old, (according to the research I read) and not 505 as you have it.
 
Perhaps earth expands due to the core, but the real growth must come from meteorites and meteors hitting the earth every day.
 
Does this site hold any interest to anyone?

Growing Earth Consortium
Link is dead. The site seems to be extinct as well. No archived version found.
 
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Sorry mate, I've got no idea. I'm worried about Global Warming and now the planets gone obese on us as well. Whatever next!
 
They're wrong, the Earth and the other planets are actually eggs. Their apparent expansion is due to the chicks inside growing and pushing against the shells. One day they're going to hatch, possibly around 2012 and the bird take flight from the incubator that we call Sol...

(See "Born of the Sun" Jack Williamson,1934)
 
sunsplash1 said:
Sorry mate, I've got no idea. I'm worried about Global Warming and now the planets gone obese on us as well. Whatever next!
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If the Earth, sun, moon and all celestial bodies are growing, this might indicate that though we experience fluxuations in Earth's conditions and temperatures, it is all a part of an evolutionary development which far exeeds the limitations placed on our present condition by science and/or sociopolitical pundits.

In other words, if we worry less about what we don't yet know for sure, we might then be able to perceive more clearly what it is that we are looking at.

So, grab an ice-tea, mate. Australians have led this theory since S. Warren Cary, one of your finest geologists.
 
Timble2 said:
They're wrong, the Earth and the other planets are actually eggs. Their apparent expansion is due to the chicks inside growing and pushing against the shells. One day they're going to hatch, possibly around 2012 and the bird take flight from the incubator that we call Sol...

(See "Born of the Sun" Jack Williamson,1934)
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Right on, T2. Growing Earth also states that the material of our planets has its origin in the sun. The mother sun and its children planets. If you like such concepts, look at this one: Planetary Genetics.
 
MichealNetzer said:
...So, grab an ice-tea, mate. Australians have led this theory since S. Warren Cary, one of your finest geologists.
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Crikey! Prof Carey! (RIP) Bloody genius, mate.

29/08 - edited to correct title and name and status
 
Timble2 said:
They're wrong...

(See "Born of the Sun" Jack Williamson,1934)
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That book of Jack's a bloody good read, by the way...
8)
 
As much as I hate to disagree with an imaginary person, and as a sane Duck, I should know that the Earth and other planets are not eggs. So, science once more to the rescue: Biomass is clearly (goddamit) shrinking.
We are thus getting smaller and the planets are staying the same size. I predict that by 2012 we'll be 23 (oooh, 23 ) per cent smaller than now.
 
Timble2 said:
They're wrong, the Earth and the other planets are actually eggs. Their apparent expansion is due to the chicks inside growing and pushing against the shells. One day they're going to hatch, possibly around 2012 and the bird take flight from the incubator that we call Sol...

(See "Born of the Sun" Jack Williamson,1934)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the citation on that Timble, that would have driven me nuts until I tracked it down once mentioned!
 
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