Gravity -

Origins

Section I

How Young is the Earth?

Chapter 1

Gravity

Was gravity on the earth the same 6 to 10 millenniums ago as it is today? No.

Did dinosaurs live in the same gravitation force that we do today? No.

Did early man live in the same gravitational force that we do today? No.

A foundational premise of Origins is that the gravity of the earth is stronger today than in prehistoric times. This stronger gravity has altered life by reducing the length of life and the size of life on earth. And this book will set out to prove it.[expander_maker more=”Read more” less=”Read less”]

Gravity is defined as the gravitational attraction of the mass of the earth, the moon, or a planet for bodies at or near its surface.¹ Gravity is based on the mass of the planet. The greater the mass of the planet, the greater the gravitational force the planet exerts on nearby objects. Newtonian theory was that there is a force called gravity that pulls on objects. Einstein further defined gravity as affecting the space and time around an object that then alters the natural path of the object. The object caught in gravity has its path altered because the space and time around that object is altered, not that the object is pulled by gravity. This may be a bit difficult to perceive, but here is a crude analogy: the drain in the tub doesn’t pull on a floating object; instead, the drain alters the water (space and time) around the floating object and thus alters the natural path of the floating object. This is best viewed by how the gravity of the sun bends light passing near its influence. And this was the test that proved Einstein’s theory of relativity was correct. It wasn’t that the sun’s gravity reached out and grabbed the light and pulled that light toward it; instead, it was the sun’s gravity changed the space and time around the light and that changed the light’s natural straight path to a slightly curved path. Light was proved to be bent by the gravity of the sun.

Review: Mass is said to determine gravity. Greater mass equals greater gravity. Einstein shed more light on the subject by suggesting that there is no gravitational force deflecting objects from traveling in straight paths. Instead, gravity relates to effects in the components of space and time, which in turn alters the straight path of said object.

Is the mass of the earth increasing, decreasing, or staying the same each year? The answer is the earth’s mass is increasing each year by 40,000 tons (80,000,000 lb./year). This seems like a lot of weight, but compared to the large mass of the earth, this is small. The earth’s mass is 5.9 x 10^24 kg or 1.3 x 10^25 pounds. (that’s 13 followed by 24 zeros), which is 130 septillion pounds. Therefore, the average of 80,000,000 pounds per year added by space debris added to Earth over six millennia, equals 4.8 x 10^11. This represents too small of a percentage to even consider. There are some scientist that estimate the amount of space debris added to Earth is upward of 100 million tons (200,000 million pounds). Averaging 100 million tons per year for six millennia, equals 1 billionth of 1 % of Earth’s mass. Thus, young Earth creationists may not use space debris deposit as the means that God increased gravity. But that is only the current rate of space debris added to the earth.

When space had many more asteroids floating around and the earth was inundated by meteorites and asteroids with much greater size and frequency in the past, then that would have increased the rate of accumulation, adding to the earth’s mass. But the number and size of asteroids that would be needed to impact the earth to effect earth’s gravity is not supported by the existing impact craters on the surface of the earth. Therefore, one could suggest that it is not likely that space debris has affected earth’s gravity significantly.

Utilizing one of the same methods that some people use today to determine the age of the earth (which is based on what we see today as the rate of mass being added to the earth per year) and extrapolating that the rate of mass deposit has always been constant, we can work backward to determine the age of the earth. Right? This is purely speculation, but that is what some people are doing with the uniformatarian (the rates we see today have been relatively constant) theory. According to this method of dating the age of the earth, we would take the mass of the earth divided by the rate of mass added per year from space debris to get the age of the earth. Give or take a few trillion years.

Hence (1.3 x 10^25 lb. mass of earth divided by 80,000,000 lb. / 1 year), that means the earth began 1.6 billion x 1 billion years ago.

It is folly to use the current rate of space debris deposit and speculate that it has always been constant in determining the age of the earth. There is no verifiable evidence that the current rates of accumulation have been constant beyond when we started measuring the current rate.

Review: One can’t use today’s current rates of space deposits on Earth and speculate that it has always been constant and then work backward to determine the beginning point of Earth’s age.

Hydrological cycles, tectonic plates, forest growth, water, and erosion have covered up most historic impact craters on earth. But NASA and other scientists have discovered that the earth was impacted by asteroids with more frequency and with larger intensity in past millennia. Given the moon’s vast amount of crater history and scientific findings about hidden alleged “dinosaur killer” impact craters on the earth, it’s conceivable that in past millennia, meteorites/asteroids/comets hitting the earth may have been numerous enough to effectively increase earth’s gravity by two means:

1. Direct accumulation, adding mass to the earth, which increases earth’s gravity.

2. Indirectly by asteroid impacts slowing earth’s rotational velocity, which decreases centripetal force, which increases earth’s net gravity, or both 1 and 2.

Direct accumulation is a plausible means for adding enough mass to the earth to increase its gravity. And it could be done on a much shorter time scale from large asteroids impacting the earth. For example, one asteroid would add as much mass to the earth as 2.5 years worth of today’s average accumulation rate. Take for example the “meteor crater” in Arizona, weighing 100,000 tons, which is 200 million pounds (200,000,000 lb.). The example above illustrates an acceleration of 2.5 years of mass accumulation from today’s average rate of space debris accumulation from one asteroid. Now, imagine a series of thousands of large asteroids bombarding the earth as the earth passed through an asteroid belt.

Both the direct method and indirect method of increasing Earth’s gravity are from multiple impacts over a long time. Changes in mass and rotational velocity are based on cumulative and multiple impacts on earth over millennia, not by one asteroid.

We know the moon has been inundated by meteors in the past just by looking at it. The moon lacks the erosive and active dynamics that the earth possesses to cover up the scars of prior impacts. Since the moon was impacted so often, then so too was the earth inundated by meteors and asteroids in the distant past. This occurred when our solar system was young, and meteors filled the space in between planets.

There are two asteroid belts, one that fills the space between Mars and Jupiter and the Kuiper Belt that is just beyond Neptune. They are remnants that suggest what all of space was potentially like before the gravity of each planet, star, and galaxy absorbed those asteroids and meteors into their mass. The asteroid belts could be the last vestiges of what our solar system looked like when it was young.

1Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary definition.

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