Reply To: Animated nuclear reaction.

[texaslabrat]

dash,

Since you seem so enamored with Wikipedia as your end-all-be-all reference source (discounting any other sources, it seems), here’s a Wikipedia article for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_acceleration

The gravitational torque between the Moon and the tidal bulge of the Earth causes the Moon to be promoted in its orbit, and the Earth to be decelerated in its rotation. As in any physical process within an isolated system, total energy and angular momentum are conserved. Effectively, energy and angular momentum are transferred from the rotation of the Earth to the orbital motion of the Moon (however, most of the energy lost by the Earth is converted to heat, and only about one 30th is transferred to the Moon). The Moon moves farther away from the Earth, so its potential energy (in the Earth’s gravity well) increases.
…
The dissipation of energy by tidal friction averages about 3.75 terawatts, of which 2.5 terawatts are from the principal M2 lunar component and the remainder from other components, both lunar and solar.[3]

While I haven’t verified the numbers myself, they seem to be in the same ballpark as what I remember calculating in my astronomy class years ago in college. As I said before, the tidal forces certainly contributed a non-zero component, but are far and away a minor player in core heating here (since that 3.75TW is the combined effects of all tidal friction across the entire structure of the earth and most notably in the ocean). If the majority of the heat being produced in the core (and subsequently conductively/convectively transferred to the surface to be radiated into space) were due to tidal forces as you claimed, 1) the earth would necessarily have to slow its rotation considerably more than observed 2) the earth would need to increase its orbital distance from the sun considerably more than has been observed or 3) the moon would need to increase its orbital distance from earth considerably more than has been observed or 4) some combination of 1-3 that satisfies conservation of energy of the earth-moon-sun system. The net total of the tidal forces across the entire structure of the earth are a factor of roughly 10 less than the heat being observed being generated from the core alone. I’m not sure how one could more succinctly explain that you are wrong, so I’ll just leave it at that.

As jamesr said, being skeptical can be a good thing when accepted dogma is attached to assumptions or guesses and forced upon us via indoctrination. However, when you are trying to argue against (easily) observable fact just to be “a free thinker”…well, let’s just say the impression you leave is probably not what you are shooting for.