greetings,
i now believe that the post that started this is serious and have done a
little research on the web. this summarizes what i have found.
it seems to me that the creationist theory is that god "spun up" the earth
about 6,000 years ago, and it has been slowing down ever since. the slowing
of the period proves this plus the decrease in magnetic field. the author of
an article notices that since about 1829 the field has decreased about 7%
(see www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-242.htm). in this article the tail of a
exponential decrease (in energy not field since field yields the wrong
answer) is extrapolated back and hence the 10,000 years. this is called free
decay. pole fluctuations and reversals complicates this so the theory is
modified to account for this (dynamic decay) and it now approaches the 6,000
years even better.
does anyone know what calculation was done by the creationist for the angular
momentum??
i was thinking of doing a trivial exercise on excel, which assumes a uniform
disk of material that extended to the orbit of Pluto with some rotational
rate in the beginning, then dividing up the rings appropriately for the
masses of the planets and sun. finally computing the angular momentum before
and after condensation. this is really simple minded but might be informative.