What force can the moon exert? What brings tides, and moves stone to earthquakes, and wobbles the very orbit of our entire planet?
Physics.
Force.
F=GM1M2/R2
And with such massive, ocean-moving forces at play, the moon can affect us, our moods, our lives - the tides of us, right?
Well, no. In that equation, the first "M" is the mass of the moon. About 7.34767309 × 1022 kilograms. That's a lot. The second "M" is us. Almost certainly less than 115 kilograms, virtually zero in comparison. Even multiplying it by G (the gravitational constant, which is 6.67384 × 10-11 m3 kg-1 s-2, another vanishingly small number) doesn't help. And when you divide the result by the square of the distance between the center of the moon and the center of -- well, you -- (about 380 MILLION meters - squared) and the Force actually being applied to us by the entire moon, working as hard as it can, is about 0.4 grams (about 0.014 ounces) at MOST, and probably a LOT less than that.
The moon, in short, exerts NO appreciable force on people.
Which is why when the moon was full, and we were in it together, our ears filled with the vibrating subliminal crackling sigh of the world as it roiled and shifted and fractured, creaking, reaching across vast emptiness to touch, driven into endless orbit under that terrible attraction, liquid silver light purifying us and every single thing we could see or touch or taste or smell as our blood leapt skyward, pulling us helpless behind it to crash into that silent bell....
...it may not have been physics.
"My return was sweet, my home re-found, but my thoughts were filled only with grief at having lost her, and my eyes gazed at the Moon, forever beyond my reach, as I sought her. And I saw her. She was there where I had left her, lying on a beach directly over our heads, and she said nothing. She was the color of the Moon; she held the harp at her side and moved one hand now and then in slow arpeggios. I could distinguish the shape of her bosom, her arms, her thighs, just as I remember them now, just as now, when the Moon has become that flat, remote circle, I still look for her as soon as the first sliver appears in the sky, and the more it waxes, the more clearly I imagine I can see her, her or something of her, but only her, in a hundred, a thousand different vistas, she who makes the Moon the Moon and, whenever she is full, sets the dogs to howling all night long, and me with them."
Calvino "Distance of the Moon"
I'd argue the forces on us have nothing to do with relative size/weight and everything to do with some kind of inexplicable entanglements (casual use of the word) on levels too small for us to measure. Spiritual (not ghosts), maybe.
ReplyDeletePS WHOA the moon looks cool tonight!