Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #01601
To: beam@corp.sgi.com
From: Jean auBois aubois@trail.com
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 15:40:37 -0700
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: stressed by the moon :-(
At 01:36 PM 3/18/99 , George Rix wrote:
> No, it doesn't spin (relative to the earth), so the same side always
faces the earth
With regard to Bjoern's criterion:
>it should be facing the earth
whether or not the moon spins is irrelevant and Mr. Rix's comment makes
sense, particularly in a tautological way.
However, from The American Heritage Dictionary:
>Spin, verb, used as an intransitive:
> 3. To rotate rapidly, whirl.
Perhaps it doesn't seem like a rapid rotation to you, it certainly does
rotate very rapidly with regard to geological time.
Looking at http://www.astro.wesleyan.edu/~bill/courses/astr107/lecture5.html
:
>We see only one side of Moon, since its rotation period and revolution
period are equal.
But we can't count on that staying that way forever. For what it is worth,
the moon also rotates with regard to the sun.
Thus, the moon spins in at least three different ways. I think that is
enough ways that I'm not merely splitting hairs. In fact, I'm feeling
quite dizzy!
Zoz
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