In reply to David Jonsson's message of Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:53:32 +0200: Hi, [snip] >Why would the outer layers of Earth rotate slower than the inner? [snip] Not that I want to defend this, but if the Earth condensed from dust and gas, then wouldn't mass closer to the center rotate faster due to conservation of angular momentum, at least as long as it remained fluid? As the outer shell solidified it would be forced to assume a constant angular velocity, which would of necessity be less than that of the still fluid core.
Of course over time friction between the two would tend to bring about a constant angular velocity for everything. How long that would take however depends on the friction constant. Note that this result is obtained, even if the motor theory is not used. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
