Orbital Resonance

In the chapter on Catastrophism I talked about some basic principles of Orbital Resonance and how it stabilized our solar system from the Catastrophic era. But I realize many will question this, since this entire subject is generally ignored in government schools. So for those who want to pursue it, here is a brief primer on Celestial Mechanics including the Principles of Orbital Resonance. People tend to think of the movements of planetary bodies similar to the game we played as children, using a  rubber ball connected to a long rubber band on a wooden paddle. By swinging it around, you could get the ball to circle your head just like the earth circles the sun - the faster you spun, the more the rubber band stretched, the tighter it got, and the farther out was the ball. Unfortunately, this comparison to celestial mechanics is very poor. In reality, the farther a planet is from the sun, the slower it must go and the weaker is the force attracting it to the sun. So let’s start from scratch.

I must start by defining resonance. In general, it is the interaction between cyclic phenomena at a frequency for which any interference is constructive rather than destructive. It is also the frequency at which an object will vibrate when it is excited (such as by tapping). Pluck a violin string, and it will vibrate at its resonant frequency. When you shorten it with your finger, its resonant frequency is higher. The violin is made to vibrate sympathetically with the sound of the vibrating strings, thus ‘resonating’ with the strings and producing a far richer sound than the strings alone. Theoretically, everything has its own inherent resonant frequency. Tap a glass - the ring you hear is its resonant frequency. If you could continue tapping at precisely that frequency, you would break the glass, as the energy of each tap would add to the intensity of the vibration. That is an example of “constructive interference.”

Page 1 of 12 All Pages