On Sep 9, 6:55*pm, oriel36 wrote:
I do not condescend
and assume that people can work out that the moon has orbital
characteristics in its orbit of the *Earth that does not include
intrinsic rotation and it is not difficult at all to arrive at a
stable conclusion.

The Moon has librations in longitude which are best explained by
considering the Moon to have an intrinsic rotation (relative to the
stars) which is constant and uniform, as measured by a mechanical
clock, with both the fact of the Moon always turning the same face to
us, _and_ those regular back-and-forth librations, being due to the
difference between that intrinsic rotation and the Moon's orbital
motion, which is not uniform, for example, because the Moon's orbit is
an ellipse following Kepler's laws instead of a perfect circle.

I know it seems funny to think of the Moon as "rotating" when it
always shows, roughly, the same side to us, but if we decide to be
slaves of "common sense", then we will end up by following Aristotle
in preference to Galileo. By rebelling against Newton, that is what
you are doing, even though you won't admit it - you are betraying the
achievements of Galileo by refusing to follow the path that he opened.

John Savard