Spyman

Many Brown Dwarfs are not hot enough to fuse even Deuterium and without or after nuclear burning they will remain intact and slowly cool down. In addition, many brown dwarfs undergo no fusion; those at the low end of the mass range (under 13 Jupiter masses) are never hot enough to fuse even deuterium, and even those at the high end of the mass range (over 60 Jupiter masses) cool quickly enough that they no longer undergo fusion after a period of time on the order of 10 million years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_dwarf#Distinguishing_low-mass_brown_dwarfs_from_high-mass_planets

"Do not expose to sun and heat. Explosion danger - 50 C max temperature." (From a CO2 BB gun cartridge.)

Recently another member expressed gratitude for the possibility to discuss theology here, in this thread, and while I don't participate much in the Religion subforum, I agree that we should be grateful for the opportunity this forum presents for us to do so. But I would also like to extend my appreciation to include all the other parts of the forum and for me especially the Science parts. As a long time supportive backbone swansont has helped make and shape the scienceforums.net to what it is today and as such I think he deserves a fair share of that honour. Keep it up swansont, don't let the hoodlums overwhelm you, there are plenty of us here that will stand up behind you if necessary.

I think I am capable to understand how you think your machine could work, it is you who fail to realise that it is impossible to create energy. You don't understand that gravity is not going to help you unbalance the wheel in your favour, as I tried to explain for you. Since you obviously don't want to listen, I suggest that you yourself build your own machine instead of complaining how scientists ruin the world. (We are not going to spend time and money to build it for you, since we already know that it is not going to work.) I wish you good luck on your endeavor and hope you won't get to disappointed when it refuses to continuously turn.

They list is there, the article spans 11 pages and the list of flaws starts at page 6. Although my first expression when skimming through it, is that the writer lacks necessary knowledge of modern cosmology and fails to understand the basics of Big Bang theory that is needed to compose an article of this magnitude. Much in the article is wrong down to simple basics thereof. Actually the whole article seems more geared towards claiming some huge conspiracy amongst scientist to scam goverments to build more particle accelerators, like LHC or CERN, so they can produce large amounts of antimatter for secret usage. Which seems rather silly to claim. If the OP wants to discuss any of the "flaws" raised in the article, I agree that it would be good to point out which one and maybe whats troubling with it.

Yes. While special relativity constrains objects in the universe from moving faster than the speed of light with respect to each other, there is no such theoretical constraint when space itself is expanding. It is thus possible for two very distant objects to be moving away from each other at a speed greater than the speed of light (meaning that one cannot be observed from the other). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_expansion_of_space There is a distinction between a redshift in cosmological context as compared to that witnessed when nearby objects exhibit a local Doppler-effect redshift. Rather than cosmological redshifts being a consequence of relative velocities, the photons instead increase in wavelength and redshift because of a feature of the spacetime through which they are traveling that causes space to expand. Due to the expansion increasing as distances increase, the distance between two remote galaxies can increase at more than 3×108 m/s, but this does not imply that the galaxies move faster than the speed of light at their present location which is forbidden by Lorentz covariance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift

This "evidence" in form of the complete plans of the design itself tells me it is NOT going to work. The first thing everyone should notice is that your machine can't break conservation laws since that is impossible. The second thing to notice is that your machine in a simplified version would look like a Seesaw, where the ball in the lower end is supposed to be enable to push up enough fluid to the other high side to make it will flip over. It might come as an surprise for you but gravity also acts on the fluid, making the movement stop when the ball and the fluid is in equilibrium with each other, which will be before the up side gets heavier than the low side. Forcing the ball to also use some of its potential energy to push down a spring will lower the amount of fluid even more. Conclusion, the down side is heavier from start and will therefore continue to stay heavier, the machine will simply not start to turn at all. Energy can not be created nor destroyed, only tranformed between different forms. Wait, wait, WHAT? The machine is not only able to produce energy from nothing, is it also able to itself vanish into nothing during operation? Are you really claiming that present day scientists are somehow preventing you from building this machine yourself? Since we refused to belive your previous impossible claim, why you think we will take your word for this ridiculous one?

Escape velocity is a true concept that really limits if gravity is able to bring back an object or not, even if it gets infinite time to act on it. Unless there are unknown laws of gravity or the way nature behaves changes over time or space, then it is in fact impossible for gravity to retract an object with escape velocity. Your thinking can be splitted in three parts: your belief of a Big Crunch, your speculations of Dark Energy and your misunderstanding of escape velocity. The Big Crunch is still considered one possible scenario the Universe could "end" in, but is deemed unlikely due to current observations that the rate of expansion is speeding up. There are some still very hypothetical research indicates that our Big Bang might have been the result of a previous Universe collapsing in a Big Crunch called the Big Bounce. But the important thing to notice here is that according to current knowledge even if the expansion stops and reverses it is not going to be done by gravity alone, the collapse is going to need help from an external force or something else not yet known. Dark Energy is still something unknown and can still surprise us when we learn more, so it might "run out of fuel" and stop accelerating the expansion. But Dark Energy might also continue to accelerate expansion for ever or it could even be phantom like and get its fuel from the emptyness it creates, as such it would cause the expansion to accelerate at an exponential rate until it literally rips everything apart, even the nucleus of atoms would get destroyed. Our current knowledge limits the speed objects can move through space to lightspeed but there is no limit on how fast space can expand, translation of redshift of light from distant objects tells us that they actually do recede from us faster than light. The objects that emitted the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation that we observe today was receding from us with ~ 57 times lightspeed when they emitted the light that reaches us now and according to our best models of the expansion they are now receding with ~3.3 times lightspeed. (Cosmos Calculator Omega=0.27 Lambda=0.73 Hubble=71 Redshift=1100) Escape velocity is the speed an projectile needs to have to reach infinite far from the object expelling gravity before its speed drops to zero. If the projectile is distancing itself faster than escape velocity it will still have excess speed when it reaches infinite far from the gravitating object. Unless our knowledge of gravity is wrong this is matematically proven true and you should try to learn and understand it. When the projectile are moving away from gravity it will never be able to leave its grasp but as it gets farther the force from gravity weakens with the square of the distance. As such both the speed of the projectile is slowed down by gravity and gravity is weakened with newfound distance. The important thing about escape velocity is the rate of how fast both the speed and gravity decreases. If the speed is low then gravity will be able to slow down the speed faster than what the newfound distance will weaken gravity but if the speed is high enough then it will always continue to move with a speed that weakens gravity at a rate faster than what gravity can slow down the projectile. Therefore the projectile will always continue to be slowed down by gravity but gravity will never be able to completely stop it and start to revers its movement. Escape velocity can also be explained with potential and kinetic energy. When the projectile is resting on Earth's surface it has a calculatable potential energy and zero kinetic energy relative Earth's center. When it gets launched from Earth we give it some extra kinetic energy and as the projectile moves up, this kinetic energy is transformed to potential energy. According to conservation laws, it gains exactly equal potential energy as it loses kinetic energy. If gravity enables to stop the projectile then all of the given kinetic energy has been transformed to potential energy at the turning point. If it starts to fall back, it converts back the potential energy to kinetic energy and precisely when it hits the surface the kinetic energy is equal to what was given to it at the launch and the initial potential energy is also exactly as it was. Normally we consider the difference in potential energy to be equal for each meter the projectile travels upward, but when very high altitudes are considered we need to recalculate the gravitational acceleration at the new altitude to get an accurate value of potential energy. As it turns out when gravity weakens with the square of distance the difference of one meter high up is less worth than one meter close to the surface. Therefore the gain in potential energy a projectile gets when climbing towards an infinite distance is lesser and lesser, making the maximum potential energy finite instead of infinite. If you have managed to follow me so far then logic tells us that if we manage to bring a projectile infinite far away, it will have a finite potential energy and since that finite potential energy must equal the kinetic and potential energy at the surface of Earth, we can conclude that the kinetic energy must also be finite, which then also means that the needed speed to reach that value of kinetic energy must also be finite. So when we give a projectile more speed than the needed escape velocity it will still have kinetic excess energy when it reaches infinite far away.

According to Wikipedia Jupiter has an average orbital speed of 13.07 km/s, 1 mile is 1.609 km and since a spacecraft on a trajectory for a gravitational slingshot can gain twice the planets orbital speed, it can increase its speed with 2 × 13.07 / 1.609 = 17 miles per second on each slingshot around Jupiter.

You can try to circumvent scientific arguments all you want, but that won't make your perpetual motion machine any more feasible. In physics, a conservation law states that a particular measurable property of an isolated physical system does not change as the system evolves. One particularly important physical result concerning conservation laws is Noether's Theorem, which states that there is a one-to-one correspondence between conservation laws and differentiable symmetries of physical systems. For example, the conservation of energy follows from the time-invariance of physical systems, and the fact that physical systems behave the same regardless of how they are oriented in space gives rise to the conservation of angular momentum. A partial listing of conservation laws that are said to be exact laws, or more precisely have never been shown to be violated: Conservation of mass-energy Conservation of linear momentum Conservation of angular momentum Conservation of electric charge Conservation of color charge Conservation of weak isospin Conservation of probability density CPT symmetry (combining charge, parity and time conjugation) Lorentz symmetry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_law The conservation laws are particularly robust from a mathematical perspective. Noether's theorem, which was proven mathematically in 1915, states that any conservation law can be derived from a corresponding continuous symmetry of the action of a physical system. This means that if the laws of physics (not simply the current understanding of them, but the actual laws, which may still be undiscovered) and the various physical constants remain invariant over time — if the laws of the universe are fixed — then the conservation laws must hold. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion_machine IMHO it is unfortunate that so many are conditioned into thinking they can violate observed laws of nature. The law that entropy always increases, holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation. — Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion_machine

I think the OP claims that he is located at the center and the CD casing with cigarette packet on top are spinning around him at arm's length.

From an external view like from Earth the spacecraft gains momentum from Jupiter, but from an local view on either Jupiter or aboard the spacecraft there is no difference in arriving and departing speed according to conservation laws. Explanation A gravity assist or slingshot maneuver around a planet changes a spacecraft's velocity relative to the Sun, though the spacecraft's speed relative to the planet on effectively entering and leaving its gravitational field, will remain the same - as it must according to the law of conservation of energy. To a first approximation, from a large distance, the spacecraft appears to have bounced off the planet. Physicists call this an elastic collision even though no actual contact occurs. A slingshot maneuver can therefore be used to change the spaceship's trajectory and speed relative to the Sun viz. its velocity. Suppose that you are a "stationary" observer and that you see: a planet moving left at speed U; a spaceship moving right at speed v. If the spaceship is on the right path, it will pass close to the planet, moving at speed U + v relative to the planet's surface because the planet is moving in the opposite direction at speed U. When the spaceship leaves orbit, it is still moving at U + v relative to the planet's surface but in the opposite direction, to the left; and since the planet is moving left at speed U, the total velocity of the rocket relative to you will be the velocity of the moving planet plus the velocity of the rocket with respect to the planet. So the velocity will be U + ( U + v ), that is 2U + v. Over-simplified example of gravitational slingshot: the spacecraft's velocity changes by up to twice the planet's velocity It might seem that this is oversimplified since the details of the orbit have not been covered, but it turns out that if the spaceship travels in a path which forms a hyperbola, it can leave the planet in the opposite direction without firing its engine, the speed gain at large distance is indeed 2U once it has left the gravity of the planet far behind. This explanation might seem to violate the conservation of energy and momentum, but we have neglected the spacecraft's effects on the planet. The linear momentum gained by the spaceship is equal in magnitude to that lost by the planet, though the planet's enormous mass compared to the spacecraft makes the resulting change in its speed negligibly small. These effects on the planet are so slight (because planets are so much more massive than spacecraft) that they can be ignored in the calculation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_slingshot#Explanation

Time dilation is an observed difference of elapsed time between two observers which are moving relative to each other, or being differently situated from nearby gravitational masses. An observer will see the other observer's clock ticking at slower rate than his/hers. This effect doesn't arise from technical aspects of the clock or the fact that any signal needs time to propagate, but from the nature of space-time described by theory of relativity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation In physics, length contraction - according to Hendrik Lorentz - is the physical phenomenon of a decrease in length detected by an observer of objects that travel at any non-zero velocity relative to that observer. This contraction (more formally called Lorentz contraction or Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction) is usually only noticeable at a substantial fraction of the speed of light; the contraction is only in the direction parallel to the direction in which the observed body is travelling. This effect is negligible at everyday speeds, and can be ignored for all regular purposes. Only at greater speeds does it become important. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Length_contraction If George is 60 lightyears apart from Gracie then it will take 60 years for a lightsignal to traverse from George's starting point to Gracie and it will take almost 73 years for George to travel there according to Gracies clock. However according to George the distance to Gracie is below 34 lightyears and therefore it only takes a little over 41 years to get there, according to his clock. (553 million miles an hour is 153 611 miles per second and lightspeed is 186 282 miles per second) To a distant observer, clocks near a black hole appear to tick more slowly than those further away from the black hole. Due to this effect, known as gravitational time dilation, an object falling into a black hole appears to slow down as it approaches the event horizon, taking an infinite time to reach it. At the same time, all processes on this object slow down causing emitted light to appear redder and dimmer, an effect known as gravitational redshift. Eventually, at a point just before it reaches the event horizon, the falling object becomes so dim that it can no longer be seen. On the other hand, an observer falling into a black hole does not notice any of these effects as he crosses the event horizon. According to his own clock, he crosses the event horizon after a finite time, although he is unable to determine exactly when he crosses it, as it is impossible to determine the location of the event horizon from local observations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole#Event_horizon The speed of light, usually denoted by c, is a physical constant important in many areas of physics. Its value in vacuo (in a vacuum) is exactly 299,792,458 metres per second (approximately 186,282 miles per second). It is the maximum speed at which all energy, matter, and information in the universe can travel. ... The speed at which light waves (or any wave for that matter) propagates in a vacuum (or otherwise) is independent both of the motion of the wave source and of the inertial frame of reference of the observer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light

The word "nothing" can mean different things in different situations, for me a true nothing really is nothing, not even time or space. A dead body is clearly something even if it is dead and lifeless, nothing is not the absence of life. I don't consider a vacuum to be nothing, a vacuum has volume and can be measured. If vacuum contains space then I think time flows there too.

Yes, that is what we currently observe when we look at very distant objects. In physics, escape velocity is the speed at which the kinetic energy plus the gravitational potential energy of an object is zero. It is the speed needed to "break free" from a gravitational field without further propulsion. For a given gravitational potential energy at a given position, the escape velocity is the minimum speed an object without propulsion needs, to be able to "escape" from the gravity (i.e. so that gravity will never manage to pull it back). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity

1) If you make a fast and firm contact with the wires then an electronic switch will not yield more power but likely result in a tiny loss instead. 2) No idea, you need to experiment to find the optimum for your gun. 3) Capacitators stores DC, you can view them as very fast rechargeable/drainable batteries. If all capacitators are in parallel then it doesn't make any difference if you measure the voltage on the incoming wires, one of the capacitors or the outgoing wires.

I said four words at the top of my post #2, maybe you should go back and read them and the links... (It also says the same in my quoted text.)

He is joking, the DeLorean time machine in the movie "Back to the Future" needs exactly 1.21 GW to work. Back to the Future is a 1985 American science-fiction comedy film. It was directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale, produced by Steven Spielberg, and starred Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover and Thomas F. Wilson. The film tells the story of Marty McFly, a teenager who is accidentally sent back in time from 1985 to 1955. ... On the morning of October 25, 1985, Marty meets his friend, scientist Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown, at Twin Pines Mall at 1:15 am at Doc's request. Doc reveals a DeLorean DMC-12 which he has modified into a time machine; the vehicle's time displacement is powered by nuclear fission and using plutonium as fuel, which generates 1.21 gigawatts of power into a device he calls the "flux capacitor". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_the_future

Inertia keeps objects moving when no force is acting upon them, a force is therefore needed to either slow them down or speed them up. The amplitude of a force and the time it is acting on the object determines what speed it will end up with. Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion. It is proportional to an object's mass. The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental principles of classical physics which are used to describe the motion of matter and how it is affected by applied forces. Inertia comes from the Latin word, iners, meaning idle, or lazy. Isaac Newton defined inertia in Definition 3 of his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which states: The vis insita, or innate force of matter, is a power of resisting by which every body, as much as in it lies, endeavours to preserve its present state, whether it be of rest or of moving uniformly forward in a straight line. In common usage the term "inertia" may refer to an object's "amount of resistance to change in velocity" (which is quantified by its mass), or sometimes to its momentum, depending on the context. The term "inertia" is more properly understood as shorthand for "the principle of inertia" as described by Newton in his First Law of Motion; that an object not subject to any net external force moves at a constant velocity. Thus an object will continue moving at its current velocity until some force causes its speed or direction to change. An object that is not in motion (velocity = zero) will remain at rest until some force causes it to move. On the surface of the Earth inertia is often masked by the effects of friction and gravity, both of which tend to decrease the speed of moving objects (commonly to the point of rest). This misled classical theorists such as Aristotle, who believed that objects would move only as long as force was applied to them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertia

One story that made a huge impression on me when I was young was Crabs on the Island, where self replicating machines are subjected to natural evolution. While not exactly fitting the definition for alien organisms or involving strange habitats, it has implications for what should be considered as life forms. Plot from Wikipedia: In his short story "Crabs on the Island" (1958) Anatoly Dneprov speculated on the idea that since the replication process is never 100% accurate, leading to slight differences in the descendants, over several generations of replication the machines would be subjected to evolution similar to that of living organisms. In the story, a machine is designed, the sole purpose of which is to find metal to produce copies of itself, intended to be used as a weapon against an enemy's war machines. The machines are released on a deserted island, the idea being that once the available metal is all used and they start fighting each other, natural selection will enhance their design. However, the evolution has stopped by itself when the last descendant, an enormously large crab, was created, being unable to reproduce itself due to lack of energy and materials. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_machine This short science fiction classic can be found and read here: http://r-spec.org/fictions/classics/crabs-on-the-island

Seems like someone heard you... From these figures, dark matter constitutes 83% of the matter in the universe, while ordinary matter makes up only 17%. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter

Why are you asking me? I thought I made it very clear in my post #75 that: Let me explain it once more, our current model of the Earth does not include any changes in neither the radius or mass. By assuming that both the radius and the mass of the Earth are not changing while calculating how much Earth's rotation is slowing down and how much farther that rotational momentum brings the Moon each year, scientist gets a value of approximately 38 millimetres. Any change whatsoever in either Earths radius or mass would NOT yield the same result as for a none changing Earth. Very precise measurements of how much farther the Moon gets from Earths surface is consistent with the predicted 38 millimetres for an unchanging Earth. The Earth is neither growing, expanding nor shrinking - IF it was we would be able to observe it relative the surface of the Moon. Or if I answere the question as you are asking it: According to our current measurements of the recession of the Moon, the Earth is expanding with ZERO millimetres each year. You need to post an explanation for how the gravitational field of the Earth, including that of the tides, is interacting with the Moon and how an proposed expansion of Earth's radius, is causing the Moon to recess the 38 millimetres farther away each year as we currently are observing. Good Luck!

Nice find Moontanman, very good video.

Not unexisting, only disproven and considered obsolete... Before the concept of plate tectonics, global cooling was a reference to a geophysical theory by James Dwight Dana, also referred to as the contracting earth theory. It suggested that the Earth had been in a molten state, and features such as mountains formed as it cooled and shrank. As the interior of the Earth cooled and shrank, the rigid crust would have to shrink and crumple. The crumpling could produce features such as mountain ranges. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geophysical_global_cooling

Even with James Maxlow ridiculous claim that the Earth radius is expanding with 22 mm/yr, Earth will still only reach 1.6 times Jupiter size by then... Wait, are you saying that you where amused at a post close to fourteen hours before it was made? Despite that can you please explain how Light Storm's erroneous claim is funny for me? Well, I finally got the time to watch the movie in the OP, it is using one of the oldest magical trick in the book to dupe people into belive, the illusionist fools the audience to look somewhere else while he performs his trick. The movie starts out boldly by accusing all scientists worldwide to deliberately hide the truth of a growing Earth and that all land areas on Earth can fit nicely together, while the Earth is shrinking. So instead of thinking of how it could be possible for the Earth to grow so much our attention is deliberately turned against Pangaea, which is explained as if the evidence for it is proof of an growing Earth. But the real truth is that a supercontinent called Pangaea some 250 millions of years ago is included in the current accepted scientific model of Plate tectonics and what's hidden is the lack of explanation for how Earth can grow. These two animations clearly shows that the biggest difference between the models is the huge changes in size of the Earth: Since I don't have much geological knowledge I can't really comment on any such evidence but it is evident that while any such proof possibly could object against the current Plate tectonics model, it is not enough evidence for a growing Earth. There needs to be observational evidence of a large size change and a valid explanation of how this change could take place before even considering them as proof of a growing or expanding Earth. Any possible geological differences in the evidence of how the continents once was joined together in a super continent called Pangaea some 250 millions of years ago seems to me to be very tiny and insignificant in comparison to the huge problems with either an large change in density or gravity. So where is the evidence and explanations of how Earth could grow ~1.85 times in radius and 6.3 times in volume during 250 million years? ---------- When checking up on the creator, it is made by this guy, Neal Adams who has an lifelong career as drawing superheroes like Batman in comics for children, and as it turns out it is no surprise that his proposed explanation involves an amazing "missing mechanism" where new matter is created out of nowhere in the core of the Earth by "materialization of energy as predicted by special relativity theory in the scientific realm of quantum electrodynamics", which sounds more like science fiction material for a new Marvel movie. And when he goes on and spices his claims with statements like: "It won't change our moral beliefs, but it will totally change our view of the universe." and "Most of what we know or assume to know is wrong one way or another." his credibility starts to drop really fast. http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20091122x3.html IMO The Dark Knight of Geology might try to challenge accepted science with fantasy and imagination but will fail without any rigorous evidence or valid explanations. ---------- James Maxlow claims that the Earth radius is currently expanding with 22 millimeter each year: "A formula for rate of change in Earth radius has been established and modeling of physical data completed. This mathematical modeling demonstrates that Earth radius has been increasing exponentially throughout time, increasing to a current rate of 22mm/year." http://www.jamesmaxlow.com/main/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=5&MMN_position=4:4 But we can calculate the distance the Moon should recede from Earth due to tidal acceleration and then measure the real increase in distance by bouncing a laser beam off the mirrors that was left there during the Apollo missions. During the period 1970 to 2007 the Moon moved 38 mm/yr outward which also is consistent with results from other measurements. The gravitational attraction that the Moon exerts on Earth is the major cause of tides in the sea; the Sun has a lesser tidal influence. ... The tidal bulges on Earth are carried ahead of the Earth-Moon axis by a small amount as a result of the Earth's rotation. This is a direct consequence of friction and the dissipation of energy as water moves over the ocean bottom and into or out of bays and estuaries. Each bulge exerts a small amount of gravitational attraction on the Moon, with the bulge closest to the Moon pulling in a direction slightly forward along the Moon's orbit, because the Earth's rotation has carried the bulge forward. The opposing bulge has the opposite effect, but the closer bulge dominates due to its comparative closer distance to the Moon. As a result, some of the Earth's rotational momentum is gradually being transferred to the Moon's orbital momentum, and this causes the Moon to slowly recede from Earth at the rate of approximately 38 millimetres per year http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbit_of_the_Moon#Tidal_evolution The motion of the Moon can be followed with an accuracy of a few centimeters by lunar laser ranging (LLR). Laser pulses are bounced off mirrors on the surface of the moon, emplaced during the Apollo missions of 1969 to 1972 and by Lunokhod 2 in 1973. Measuring the return time of the pulse yields a very accurate measure of the distance. These measurements are fitted to the equations of motion. This yields numerical values for the Moon's secular acceleration in longitude and the rate of change of the semimajor axis of the Earth-Moon ellipse. From the period 1970-2007, the results are: -25.85"/cy² in ecliptic longitude (cy is centuries, here taken to the square) +38.14 mm/yr in the mean Earth-Moon distance This is consistent with results from satellite laser ranging (SLR), a similar technique applied to artificial satellites orbiting the Earth, which yields a model for the gravitational field of the Earth, including that of the tides. The model accurately predicts the changes in the motion of the Moon. Finally, ancient observations of solar eclipses give fairly accurate positions for the Moon at those moments. Studies of these observations give results consistent with the value quoted above. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_acceleration#Quantitative_description_of_the_Earth-Moon_case If the radius of the Earth changed with several millimeters each year we would be able to notice this very accurately. Since we have NOT observed the change James Maxlow's model predicts this model is disproved by observation. In fact all models predicting any large change of Earth's radius are wrong according to observation. ---------- Ok, so I also did some rough math to get a grip on the all the values mentioned in this thread: Formulas for Volume and Area are: [math] V=\frac{4}{3}\pi r^3 [/math] and [math] A=4\pi r^2 [/math] Earth today: Mean radius is 6 371 000 m. Total Mass is 5.9736×1024 kg. and Land Area is 1.4894×1014 m2. For current land area to be the whole surface area the old radius would have to be 3 442 712 m. which is ~1.85 times smaller. Thus if Pangea covered the whole Earth 250 millions years ago the radius must have growed with a at least a mean of 11.7 millimeter each year. With that old radius 250 millions of years ago Earth would have had an Volume of 1.71×1020 m3. which compared to todays 1.08×1021 m3. is ~6.3 times smaller. Formula for surface gravity is: [math] g=\frac{GM}{r^2} [/math] where G=6.67428×10-11 If a change in mass has caused this growth and mean density have remained roughly unchanged then Earth's mass back then was 9.46×1023 kg. and surface gravity was 5.3 m/s2. which is ~1.8 times lower. But then an explanation is needed of how Earth managed to accumulate ~5 times its own weight in that timespan. If mass has not changed then surface gravity acceleration was ~33.6 m/s2. back then, which compared to todays 9.82 m/s2. is ~3.4 times larger. But then an explanation is needed how Earth have managed to expand and change its mean density by ~6.3 times. So far there is no valid explanation for either how the Earth has changed mass or density presented in this thread.