Going Round in Circles

[Boreades]

This ...
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/0 ... anges_day/

Says ...

Scientists from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Columbia University found that days on Earth grew longer as the Moon inched further away. Some 1.4 billion years ago, a day lasted just over 18 hours, the researchers found.

Previous simulations showed that when the satellite formed 4.5 billion years ago, it was just 22,500 kilometers (13,981 miles) away. Now, it’s about 400,000 kilometers (248,548 miles) away. Over time, as it spun, the tidal forces between the Earth and Moon has pushed the satellite further away.

The results have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers used Milankovitch climate cycles and statistical modelling to study the relationship between the Earth and the Moon.

The Moon is moving away at a rate of 3.82 centimeters per year.

The TME relevance?

c.5,000 years ago the moon was 191 metres closer to Earth. Which was spinning faster, so the day was shorter, and there would be more days in the solar year.

As it was closer, and the tidal forces follow the inverse square law (proportopnal to the square of the distaince), the tides would be higher as well.

As a consistency check:
https://www.universetoday.com/103206/wh ... -the-moon/

Lunar Laser Ranging experiment : From this technique, astronomers have also discovered that the Moon is slowly drifting away from us, at a glacial rate of 3.8 cm (1.5 inches) a year.

I haven't done the maths yet, on exactly how much faster Earth was rotating, but I'm sure it means that back then we were a little closer to 366 days a year.

Of course, this might all be scientific bovine excrement. If the Earth and the Moon have been accumulating mass from space (meteor strikes) then they used to be lighter. Or there might have been a period when they got closer. Does that take us back towards a mythical 360-day year?

[Boreades]

ClickSpring has just published Video #10 in his very wonderful series of videos on reconstructing a working version of The Antikythera Mechanism

Episode 10 - Evidence Of A Lunar Calendar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkKgdq57uOo

He kindly includes links to the work of others

Hi Folks, you may be aware that there has been some research in the works for the last couple of years. I'm pleased to announce that it has now been published, do please enjoy: https://bhi.co.uk/antikytheramechanism/

I recommend it to the house. I'm hoping to set aside a small workshop space in the basement of the annex to Château Boreades. Where I can happily try and fail to produce anything as technically marvellous.

[Boreades]

Stonehenge: The Lost Circle Revealed.
Originally on Friday. February 12th. BBC 2 TV 9pm, now on iPlayer.

A dubious programme, in which old legends and hypotheses are breathlessly reported as "fact".

Was Stonehenge originally built in Wales? Archaeologists unearth remains of Britain's third largest stone circle and claim it was 'dismantled and MOVED to Wiltshire'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech ... henge.html

And one of the bluestones at Stonehenge has an unusual cross-section which matches one of the holes left at Waun Mawn, suggesting the monolith began its life as part of the stone circle in the Preseli Hills before being moved.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-56029203

This is the kind of logic that defies logic.

I'm not surprised that some "experts" are keen to drum up some publicity for themselves. I am, however, surprised to see Mike Parker Pearson's name leading the list. He, at least, ought to know better.

A whole story has been developed over the years about this heroic human venture of tribesmen coming all the way to the Preselis to pick up the bluestones from a quarry – and then to carry those 80 stones all the way back to Stonehenge where they were going to be used as part of this amazing new monument. That has become a part of British mythology but is widely accepted as fact.
...
When you start to dig a little bit you find that actually there is no evidence at all. It is entirely a myth which was invented in 1922, immediately after the First World War. The myth received instant acceptance on the part of the British public because there was a desperate need for a feel-good factor after the war – national pride had been dented, the economy was in tatters and everybody needed a good news story.

Ref : Wales online : Not made in Preseli
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wale ... es-1894944

Other "experts" are keen to fall into logical fallacies. The most notable one is that the Preseli and Stonehenge bluestones are similar. That much may be true, but "similar" does not mean "identical" or that they must have come from the same location.

"Careful ignoral" is also applied to all the stones from the Marlborough Downs (which is much closer to Stonehenge).