>Since the strength of the tidal stress exerted on the
>earth is inversely proportional to the cube of the earth-moon separation
>distance, we see that this effect becomes most significant when the moon was
>significantly closer than it is now.
True. But, as I pointed out in an earlier post, the tidal stress exerts a
force on the moon, which causes a slow acceleration. After all, it has
only reached 5.6 cm/year in all the years this has been going on. So the
average rate of recession might be less than 5.6 cm/year. In any case, the
problem is highly nonlinear, and various effects contribute to increasing
or decreasing the recession rate. Huse is really sticking his neck out
throwing out such a naive estimate without justifying it. Of course the
math error makes the situation worse.
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William E. Hamilton, Jr., Ph.D.
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