Moderation Note: The following 18 posts were moved from the thread "Belief in Earth's Iron Core still puzzling" in favor of having their own topic of discussion here—hopefully allowing for more-useful and more-specific responses.
A MATTER OF GRAVITY
Some two hundred years ago, scientists longed to break free from Church control. To break free, they needed to unseat the Church approved, cold-core cross section that had been taught for over 5000 years. The sleight of hand they devised was so well disguised even the Jesuits, who the Pope directed to derail their efforts, could find no fault in their logic. In time, the Jesuits came to teach the scientist’s view. Today, we perpetuate the scientist’s sleight of hand every time we teach gravitational forces at work within Earth.
Gravity is a bidirectional (elastic) force—Earth pulls you with the same amount of force that you pull the Earth. But since Earth is so much larger than any freely moving body, on or above her surface, we treat her gravity as a directional force. This makes the force of gravity relatively simple, so we teach gravity before we teach elasticity. But in reality, elastic cohesion (the drawing together of particles) is the force identified by Newton in his law of universal gravitation, “Every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle with a force that is directly proportional to the product of the masses of the particles and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.”
In addition to our less than accurate treatment of gravity, seismic wave data show Earth’s upper shells to be solids down to her core. Yet, we treat her as a large liquid drop to calculate her moment of inertia from her rotationally induced flattening (f). Since she is thought to at least act like a liquid, her flattening is believed to be held on check solely by the equatorial acceleration of gravity (ge); hence, our flattening equation becomes f = 1.5(C-A/Ma2) + 0.5 rate of rotation squared times Earth's radius (a)/ge). In so doing, we conclude she has a low moment of inertia. In turn, she must have a molten interior to allow heavier particles to sink deep into her core to achieve the low moment of inertia demanded by our flattening equation. However, our hot-core model is valid only if we ignore horizontal elastic cohesion.
Elastic cohesion in a solid imparts a constant pull between all its parts. But, no one ever bothered to calculate the strength of that pull in Earth’s shells, because in a schematic of forces diagram the improper use of directional forces (the scientist’s sleight of hand) makes them appear to cancel out; but a gravitational pull cannot cancel out another gravitational pull—only balance. Their pulls are still present.
Now, if we treat Earth’s outer shell as a structurally sound, hollow sphere, subject to horizontal elastic cohesion; then the mass movement, created by her rotation, must also overcome that shell’s elastic cohesion before she will flatten. Trigonometric calculations of Earth’s gravitational forces show horizontal cohesion in her outermost shell to be an acceleration of equal value to the acceleration of vertical gravity on her surface, thus our flattening equation needs another component, +0.5 rate of rotation squared times earth's radius/gh. Or, since this acceleration is of equal value to the acceleration of vertical gravity, that vertical equatorial acceleration can be doubled to obtain Earth’s moment of inertia. When doubled, our flattening equation yields a moment of inertia equal to the summation of moments of inertia mathematically derived for the individual shells of a condensed, cold-core model, whose shell densities are proportional to the speeds of seismic waves passed through them. Serendipity!!!
The squeeze afforded by horizontal elastic cohesion, gives us a unique way to look at Earth’s mechanics—one of a contracting pressure vessel driven by an ever increasing packing pressure provided by horizontal cohesion. A pressure vessel capable of producing a natural heat-pumping cycle—like the heat-pumping cycle employed in diamond anvil devices used to determine the physical characteristics of solid hydrogen. Just as the test sample in a diamond anvil gives up heat to move to a denser phase, so too does the hydrogen crystal in Earth’s pressure vessel give up heat—heat that shows up as geothermal energy in or on her surface.
