In article ,
mcv wrote:
In talk.origins John Bode wrote:
don findlay wrote:
Earth expansion and how to falsify it.

[...]
Not so easy is telling how to falsify this observation. What
geological acid test could be used to FALSIFY it? ....how would you
assess, *GEOLOGICALLY*, if the Earth has got bigger? (Or not?) Really
substantially bigger; doubled in size in the last 10% or so of its
history.

Assuming constant mass, if the Earth has increased in volume, then
there should be voids throughout the interior (sort of like when bread
dough rises); these should be detectable via propagation of seismic
waves.

Unless the earth was denser in the past.

If mass has increased along with volume, then the Earth's gravitational
attraction has also increased over time;

Not necessarily. A long time ago, some (Russell?) recalculated the
entire SI system, basing it on real fundamental values instead of
arbitrary things like meters and the density of water. After he did
that, almost all fundamental constants were close to 1, with two
exceptions: gravitation, which was 10^-40, and the age of the
universe, which was 10^40 (or possibly the other way around, I
don't know).

You got the order (and orders of magnitude) correct.

The conclusion is obvious: as the universe ages, gravity drops, and
the earth (and other bodies) expand.

It's probably complete bull****, but it's an interesting theory.

This was actually one of the ideas (well, the theories of gravity
built out of it) which were tested by the lunar corner reflector
work. It got disproved. But it was good enough to be worth testing.

--
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences