Expanding Earth Theory

I love hearing about science conspiracy theories. My new favorite, that I stumbled across the other day, is that Earth is increasing in size, and that expansion is the only plausible explanation for what looks like the continental drift.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjgidAICoQI&feature=related

This interests me because years ago I proposed a thought experiment about gravity, where I noted that if all matter in the universe were expanding, you would appear to be attracted to other objects when all that was happening is that those objects were growing and closing the space gaps between them.

Naturally there are many holes in this theory, including the lack of evidence that planets are getting larger. But now I discover this theory that the earth has indeed grown. And it must be true because it is on Youtube!

My theory of gravity held that if you and the earth were the only things in existence, and you both grew at the same time, you wouldn’t notice the growth because all the reference points are growing too.

One of the big criticisms to this theory is that mass would increase if size increased. Originally, I waved my hand at that problem and just said the theory includes an ongoing shift of the laws of physics to keep everything in balance, such as orbits and the relative strength of structures.

But isn’t the mass of earth increasing? People are being born and new trees are growing every day. Perhaps that increase in mass is borrowed from other places, such as dust landing here from space, but clearly some objects are gaining mass, as the expanding matter theory of gravity requires, and the source of that gain is not obvious to the eye.

For the expanding matter theory of gravity to be true, you’d expect some things to expand at different rates than others. That’s consistent with the youtube video on how the earth expanded while the land mass didn’t change much. It’s also consistent with the universe itself expanding, which we observe.

The expanding matter theory of gravity isn’t a serious one. It’s just a fun mental detour. And like all fringe theories, you can always find clues that make it seem as though it all fits together, so long as you don’t know too much about science.

[Question: Photons have mass. What happens when all those photons from the sun hit Earth? Does the mass stay here?]

Comments

[craig jones]

Subduction is a scientific device. a pause if you will, to say I don't know. Like the age of the universe, yeah 14 billion years, could be 17 trillion years whatever a year means, but it creates a nifty a notion of a temporal subduction zone. we pander to the child inside longing for
a conservative aspect of the universe that will save us
yet not bore us or demean our self esteem.We make laws and rules about everything,some people say it is a function of humanness, ridiculous. It is an injury, an abberation like
war and empire. the universe is life and will continue to
grow wherever it can, and suprise us whenever we notice.

[Andrew Falconer]

This concept makes as much sense as all the other geological theories that have been brought up in the past 50 years.

If you want to challenge it, then create your own whole-earth geology computer simulation that explains the continents and oceans from the beginning of the earth to now. Show a better way to compensate for all the forces on the entire sphere of the earth?

[craig]

What do they have?

[Keith Wilson]

Dilbert humor is amongst my favorites, but . . . There are four designated possibiities that tried to explain expansion. They can be found at www.eearthk.com. There is also a brief history there and how fast a timeline standard scientists decided on Plate Tectonics (PT) after they were forced to accept "expansion" at mid-ocean ridges. PT has to have a proven "subduction". So, any Dilbert at the meetings would say "Surely, you've measured the Earth size more than once?" or "Certainly, you've placed objects and measured them being subducted?" And when he finds they haven't perhaps he'd say "Perhaps they don't want to know." Good references. Check out the Carey book for all the science.

[ryan]

PHOTONS DONT HAVE MASS. PERIOD!

[Jeff]

The mass stays here, except for the portion reflected back into space.
Solar intensity is roughly 1366 watts per square meter. The earth's radius is roughly 6.4km - so the total power hitting the earth is roughly 1.75*10^17 watts.
That works out to roughly 2 kilograms hitting the earth each second, or 170,000kg (380,000lbs) each day.
This is a microscopic amount compared to the total mass of the earth - 1/(10^20) of the total mass.

[Mark]

In a way the earth is getting bigger - there is an amount of "space dust" falling on the earth every day, although not enough to really make a difference.

When things grow - they aren't creating new mass. Come on Scott, you should know this - for example, when trees grow, they extract the carbon out of the atmosphere and use it to create new molecules. Believe it or not, most of the mass of a tree is extracted from the air.

[craig]

what if space is being captured?

[Joe]

Photons don't have mass, but they do have energy, and--as Einstein told us--E=mc^2, so energy and mass are one and the same.

And yes, I do have a degree in physics.

There is no gravity, the earth just sucks

[Aeryck]

Mark McCutcheon has taken a serious stab at developing a physics based on the idea of everything expanding (so there really isn't any gravity, etc.) Exactly as you are describing: http://www.thefinaltheory.com/

[Rabbit]

You know, If the surface of earth is bombarded with photons, it would auctually exert a force on the surface of the planet that wound cause it to compress. It would be similiar to a submarine diving deep into the ocean. Also because it acts one one side of the planet, it would cause the earth to have a constantly increasing orbit. Good thing we have the moon to shoot photons to the back side of the earth, otherwise we would fly off into space!

To answer your question about photons, the energy is asorbed. If I remember correctly, photons are asorbed by atoms and they cause the electrons to jump into higher orbital states. When an electron drops from a higher orbital state to a lower one, the photon is released again.

[neopolitan]

From hollowearththeory.com ..

"Understanding outgassing and atmosphere formation on a hollow planet model helps us explain past mysteries such as the great flood on Earth and the Floods on Mars."

You don't have to scratch too hard to find "God did it" behind a lot of these crackpot theories. Sorry, the Great Flood is a myth (albeit possibly with some basis in an ancient catastrophic event for which there may be geological evidence - like the flooding of the Black Sea, not the world, but enough to be inconvenient if you lived on the shores of the Black Sea).

I must point out that I distance myself from these sorts of theories. My model (previously described) is in all likelihood entirely consistent with standard cosmology and general relativity and totally at odds with theological crackpottery (especially anything which has even the vaguest whiff of Intelligent Design).

cheers,

neopolitan

[Asgeir S. Nilsen]

If the planet is expanding; I'd guess it puts the dinosaurs in a different light. I mean, if it's expanding at a constant rate it might only have been a third the size when the dinosaurs walked the then quite tiny planet?

So if the dinosaurs walked the earth today, a T-Rex would only be the size of a cow..

Asgeir

[Gekkobear]

Photons have mass (even tiny mass) and they're traveling at light speed. Force = mass * acceleration (or deceleration) so they're all slamming into anything exposed to light like tiny cannonballs.

Which is why I hide from the light. Except my computer monitor for some reason.

Oh my god, it's shooting me with light right now.

AAAAAAARGGGGGGHH!

Or maybe light doesn't have mass?

[neopolitan]

Looking at the general level of posting, I have to say "ouch". I doubt that many could think through the whole idea properly.

And photons don't have mass - reference here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon - (although they are sometimes treated as having mass, it's one of those little physics fiddles to keep the equations working).

Plus, everything expands. So the idea of just the Earth expanding and water not expanding, or blood not expanding, is just silly. The effect that could cause the effect of gravity works like this:

Everything expands.

Concentrations of mass-energy resist expansion.

Structured matter maintains relative separation.

So the Earth _effectively_ shrinks relative to the surrounding space but then immediately expands to maintain relative separation.

This gives us all a velocity outwards from the centre of the Earth, the closer something is to the centre of the Earth the greater the effective velocity is. So things below us are a little faster, so they either catch up to us, if we are above the surface (so we fall) or they push against out feet (keeping us from drifting off into space).

These effective velocities make time run slower the deeper you are in a gravity well, in accordance with General Relativity.

--

But I doubt that many people can follow that (and it is a bit quick and dirty anyway).

cheers,

neopolitan

[Kyle]

photons are a massless particle

[Blablevic]

Photons don't have mass, they are energy transmitters.

Also, expansion doesn't mean increase of mass. If expansion happens without an increase of mass, then the density is decreasing. If this theory of expanding Earth is true, then the density of whatever there is inside of the earth is decreasing. This might also explain why those very large planets are just huge gas bubbles and not solid like Earth.

[M. Groves]

Two comments: First, if everything was expanding, it's not hard to see that different shapes would expand at different rates. So, if you had a sphere and a cube with the same width, over time, the cube would grow faster than the sphere. You could measure that.

Second, since the earth is at kind of a steady state right now, the amount of energy absorbed from the sun should be about the same as that radiated off into space.

Although I'm intrigued by the creativity shown by some crackpots, "expansion theory" seems pretty easy to debunk.

[whatever]

Who said mass has to increase if size increases? A singularity is smaller than can be imagined yet can contain nearly infinite mass. The amount of mass might also depend on the perception of the observer. Other than that the earth gains mass as it accumulates energy and dust from other sources in space. Apparently, more energy and dust is accumulating than is being released by the earth. There are more people and trees, but not this doesn't mean mass has necessarily accumulated, but rather because of the conservation of mass/energy.

[Bob]

Question: Photons have mass...

Answer: No they don't. Nothing with mass can move at the speed of light.

Question: What happens when all those photons from the sun hit Earth?

Answer: The sun gives us heat and light. Both of these escape from the Earth eventually. If it was like Vegas, and all of the photons that came here, stayed here, then the Earth would be an invisible ball of fire.

[Bob]

Question: Photons have mass...

Answer: No they don't. Nothing with mass can move at the speed of light.

[Felicity]

The earth is not only EXPANDING, it's HOLLOW! Check this out http://www.hollowearththeory.com

[Felicity]

The earth is not only EXPANDING, it's HOLLOW! Check this out www.hollowearththeory.com

[Christopher]

"People are being born and new trees are growing every day."

Isn't that why mothers are asked to "eat for two"? And wouldn't all that eating tend to DECREASE the size of the earth? So maybe the earth is contracting at a velocity that is a function of the number of pregnant women?

[Wise-acres]

An expanding earth sounds reasonable. With so many asteroids, alpha/beta particles and cosmic rays hitting the earth, I imagine that the earth would be increasing in size over time.
IF E=Mc^2, then energy can be converted into mass and vise versus. So energy is really just another form of mass. Which means if a photon is absorbed by a particle, the photons can add to the particle’s mass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass-energy_equivalence