tidal locking
May. 27th, 2007 12:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
guslI have always wondered why we only see one side of the moon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_resonance
I like to think of this as being due to the tidal-lock configuration being lower-energy than other configurations... but it doesn't feel like a clean explanation, since I don't have a theorem explaining why things will tend to a lower-energy state. Does Lagrangian mechanics validate my intuition?
Fermat's principle is another example of the same sort of intuition that I can't justify rigorously.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_resonance
I like to think of this as being due to the tidal-lock configuration being lower-energy than other configurations... but it doesn't feel like a clean explanation, since I don't have a theorem explaining why things will tend to a lower-energy state. Does Lagrangian mechanics validate my intuition?
Fermat's principle is another example of the same sort of intuition that I can't justify rigorously.