Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: SunkenCiv
Hapgood's greatest problem (besides basic infeasibility of crustal displacement) was an utter lack of supporting evidence.

His books are FULL of supporting evidence. Suggesting that there was none strikes me as quite foolish given Einstein's support.

FOREWORD by Albert Einstein

I frequently receive communications from people who wish to consult me concerning their unpublished ideas. It -goes without saying that these ideas are very seldom possessed of scientific validity. The very first communication, however, that I received from Mr. Hapgood electrified me. His idea is original, of great simplicity, and if it continues to prove itself of great importance to everything that is related to the history of the earth's surface.

A great many empirical data indicate that at each point on the earth's surface that has been carefully studied, many climatic changes have taken place, apparently quite suddenly. This, according to Hapgood, is explicable if the virtually rigid outer crust of the earth undergoes, from time to time, extensive displacement over the viscous, plastic, possibly fluid inner layers. Such displacements may take place as the consequence of comparatively slight forces exerted on the crust, derived from the earth's momentum of rotation, which in turn will tend to alter the axis of rotation of the earth's crust.

In a polar region there is continual deposition of ice, which is not symmetrically distributed about the pole. The earth's rotation acts on these unsymmetrically deposited masses, and produces centrifugal momentum that is transmitted to the rigid crust of the earth. The constantly increasing centrifugal momentum produced in this way will, when it has reached a certain point, produce a movement of the earth's crust over the rest of the earth's body, and this will displace the polar regions toward the equator.

Without a doubt the earth's crust is strong enough not to give way proportionately as the ice is deposited. The only doubtful assumption is that the earth's crust can be moved easily enough over the inner layers.

The author has not confined himself to a simple presentation of this idea. He has also set forth, cautiously and comprehensively, the extraordinarily rich material that supports his displacement theory. I think that this rather astonishing, even fascinating, idea deserves the serious attention of anyone who concerns himself with the theory of the earth's development. To close with an observation that has occurred to me while writing these lines: If the earth's crust is really so easily displaced over its substratum as this theory requires, then the rigid masses near the earth's surface must be distributed in such a way that they give rise to no other considerable centrifugal momentum, which would tend to displace the crust by centrifugal effect. I think that this deduction might be capable of verification, at least approximately. This centrifugal momentum should in any case be smaller than that produced by the masses of deposited ice.

I think Hapgood gave up on the idea that ice buildup has been the mechanism that has caused the shifts, but I think the evidence he presents that such shift have occurred, and in geologically recent times, is compelling.

ML/NJ

20 posted on 05/14/2019 4:32:39 PM PDT by ml/nj
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies ]


To: ml/nj
Hapgood's original idea, which Einstein really didn't like due to the physical inertia of the rotating Earth, was a shift of the entire globe; he reworked it and returned with crustal displacement, which greatly reduced the energy required -- but only assuming that it would move across molten inner strata like a layer of ice over water. Einstein didn't want to endorse that either, so he wrote:
The only doubtful assumption is that the earth's crust can be moved easily enough over the inner layers.
Crustal displacement is a way to produce catastrophic results using uniformitarian principles, and like all such attempts, it doesn't work./blockquote>

21 posted on 05/14/2019 4:41:30 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson