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Full Moon And Humans


Deepwater6

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Does anyone know if there is any scientific evidence of the full moon's effect on humans? I have spoken and heard from many policemen who swear by this. It seems to bring out the worst in some people according to them.

 

I was just curious if the moon or any other cosmic cycle has any proven effect on humans?

 

I've seen a lot of caustic exchanges on this site lately and was wondering if it was a full moon. Either way although we may disagree, most of the people on this site are seeking the same thing...the truth.

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...I was just curious if the moon or any other cosmic cycle has any proven effect on humans?

 

I've seen a lot of caustic exchanges on this site lately and was wondering if it was a full moon. Either way although we may disagree, most of the people on this site are seeking the same thing...the truth.

 

:rant: :rotfl: i am unaware of any scientific support for lunacy. however, there is scientific support for earthquakes affecting people. google "Charlotte King Effect" for other sources. :read:

 

charlotte king effect

 

...Charlotte was sent to a total of four states for medical and scientific testing.

 

She was the only one to be tested in this manner. She was tested in Hyperbaric Decompression Chambers, in Anchoic Chambers and Thermographic Research Labs as well as the State Schools for the Deaf and the US Bureau of Standards. ALL the tests revealed the same thing - that she could hear in the lower frequencies not normally heard by humans, and that she had a very high sensitivity to electromagnetic fields.

 

The majority of the sensitives have the same symptoms, most of them would experience the same symptom at the same time in the same part of their body no matter where they lived. ...

 

ps some other info on environmental effects on people. >> Human Physiological Effects of Weather and Earth Environment

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found a piece from scientific american. :sherlock: :read:

 

full article: >> Lunacy and the Full Moon

...There is a more serious problem for fervent believers in the lunar lunacy effect: no evidence that it exists. Florida International University psychologist James Rotton, Colorado State University astronomer Roger Culver and University of Saskatchewan psychologist Ivan W. Kelly have searched far and wide for any consistent behavioral effects of the full moon. In all cases, they have come up empty-handed. By combining the results of multiple studies and treating them as though they were one huge study—a statistical procedure called meta-analysis—they have found that full moons are entirely unrelated to a host of events, including crimes, suicides, psychiatric problems and crisis center calls. In their 1985 review of 37 studies entitled “Much Ado about the Full Moon,” which appeared in one of psychology’s premier journals, Psychological Bulletin, Rotton and Kelly humorously bid adieu to the full-moon effect and concluded that further research on it was unnecessary.

...

Illusory correlations result in part from our mind’s propensity to attend to—and recall—most events better than nonevents. When there is a full moon and something decidedly odd happens, we usually notice it, tell others about it and remember it. We do so because such co-occurrences fit with our preconceptions. Indeed, one study showed that psychiatric nurses who believed in the lunar effect wrote more notes about patients’ peculiar behavior than did nurses who did not believe in this effect. In contrast, when there is a full moon and nothing odd happens, this nonevent quickly fades from our memory. As a result of our selective recall, we erroneously perceive an association between full moons and myriad bizarre events. ...

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Thanks guys, by these articles scientific proof seems fairly ambiguous. I did enjoy the one article that said hockey fights increased during full moons. That must be an interesting job, counting hockey fights.

 

I can attest to the weather related aches and pains. My back starts to act up when certian weather comes about and it sure doesn't feel like it's all in my head.

 

It also got me thinking about the 2112 Mayan prophesy and our alignment as it occurs. Will this alignment either real or just in our heads affect us here on Earth? I guess we will find out soon.

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...It also got me thinking about the 2112 Mayan prophesy and our alignment as it occurs. Will this alignment either real or just in our heads affect us here on Earth? I guess we will find out soon.

 

the 2012 meme is bunkum. there is only one stella that mentions the date & the inscription is incomplete. there is no prohesy and there is no alignment. can't remember which thread here has the specifics as we have a number of threads on the topic. try the search function. while you're out, why not try a fresh hot cup of our biotheology thread to get a handle on some of what is in our silwy wittle puddin' heads. :coffee_n_pc:

 

edit: PS here's that reference. click on the swoosh arrow by modestino's name to go to the whole post and related thread.

...reading....

 

The only pre-Colombian Glyphs talking about the transition from the 13th to 14th baktun is apparently the archeological site "Tortuguero". The translation may or may not read somewhere in the neighborhood of:

The Thirteenth Bak'tun" will be finished (on) Four Ahaw, the Third of K'ank'in. ? will occur. (It will be) the descent(?) of the Nine Support (?) God(s) to the ?.

 

 

...yeah. That's quite a prophecy we got there.

 

~modest :turtle:

Edited by Turtle
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The only possible mechanism is the slight variation in gravitational field, but why would the full moon differ from the new moon, due to this?

 

it wouldn't. if there was a gravitational effect on the human body/brain, which is not the case, then it would make sense to look at the moon's perigee & apogee as well. who has time for tracking that with all the maddness & mayhem going on. :crazy: :moon:

 

this is the take on the gravitational business from the sci am article i earlier linked to.

...But there are at least three reasons why this explanation doesn’t “hold water,” pardon the pun. First, the gravitational effects of the moon are far too minuscule to generate any meaningful effects on brain activity, let alone behavior. As the late astronomer George Abell of the University of California, Los Angeles, noted, a mosquito sitting on our arm exerts a more powerful gravitational pull on us than the moon does. Yet to the best of our knowledge, there have been no reports of a “mosquito lunacy effect.” Second, the moon’s gravitational force affects only open bodies of water, such as oceans and lakes, but not contained sources of water, such as the human brain. Third, the gravitational effect of the moon is just as potent during new moons—when the moon is invisible to us—as it is during full moons. ...
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I realize that there is no scientific evidence of the effect of the full moon but when the moon is near full, two or three days before and after the full moon, I love to out in the wild some place, the beach, the river, or the woods, I really like being outside in the moon light, makes my hair grow and my teeth big... no really i like the light of the moon and being outside away from the city, hiking by the light of the moon is great you should try it, no flashlights, that would be cheating.

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I realize that there is no scientific evidence of the effect of the full moon but when the moon is near full, two or three days before and after the full moon, I love to out in the wild some place, the beach, the river, or the woods, I really like being outside in the moon light, makes my hair grow and my teeth big... no really i like the light of the moon and being outside away from the city, hiking by the light of the moon is great you should try it, no flashlights, that would be cheating.

 

:thumbs_up

 

i love the moon & the moon loves me. :boy_hug: :moon: :heart: :boy:

 

cloudy full moon at perigee ~8:00 pm pst friday december 12, 2008

 

moon with 22º halo & jupiter in conjunction

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it wouldn't.
One thence applies modus tollens.

 

I do however say that the bit you quote from the article does a lousy job of arguing out the case, apart from saying the thing I pointed out as well. So let's play the Devil's Advocate:

 

The deformation of the geoid due to the moon is in the neighborhood of half a metre. This is an egregious enough effect, indeed it is at the origin of tides and look at what they can reach in places like Fundy Bay, that article even mentions that it causes tides, while downsizing it compared to an eensy weensy mosquito. So, aside from the point of new moon being equivalent to full moon, how does that article get around this? Doesn't seem such an in-depth analysis to me.

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One thence applies modus tollens.

 

I do however say that the bit you quote from the article does a lousy job of arguing out the case, apart from saying the thing I pointed out as well. So let's play the Devil's Advocate:

 

The deformation of the geoid due to the moon is in the neighborhood of half a metre. This is an egregious enough effect, indeed it is at the origin of tides and look at what they can reach in places like Fundy Bay, that article even mentions that it causes tides, while downsizing it compared to an eensy weensy mosquito. So, aside from the point of new moon being equivalent to full moon, how does that article get around this? Doesn't seem such an in-depth analysis to me.

 

:thumbs_up yup. tollensed the modus right out of any resonableness of the claim. :agree: to follow up on the new moon, i agree the bit i cited is just a restatement of what you observed. i guess we haven't given a more detailed analysis because armed with a basic knowledge of what makes the moon full, 1/4, or new, it is rather obvious. for the benefit of the not so initiated, here's a graphic.

 

note that the idea of the full moon having a greater gravitational force on earth is that in this phase the sun & moon are in line together with earth and that this also occurs at the new moon. :earth: :clue:

The lunar phase depends on the Moon's position in orbit around the Earth and the Earth's position in orbit around the sun. This diagram (not to scale) looks down on Earth from north. Both Earth and the Moon's orbit are rotating counter-clockwise. Sunlight (yellow arrows) is coming in from the right. One can see, for example, that the full moon will always rise at sunset and that the waning crescent moon is high overhead around 9:00 am local time.

lunar phases @wiki

 

now as to the tides. the author makes a point about tidal effects only occuring in open bodies of water. i think he is getting to that because there is a lag between the position on earth where the tide is high and the position of the moon at the same time. the moon leads the high tide, dragging up the water behind it in its gravitational wake. to whit:

tide @wiki

...The Moon orbits the Earth in the same direction as the Earth rotates on its axis, so it takes slightly more than a day—about 24 hours and 50 minutes—for the Moon to return to the same location in the sky. During this time, it has passed overhead (culmination) once and underfoot once (at an hour angle of 00:00 and 12:00 respectively), so in many places the period of strongest tidal forcing is the above mentioned, about 12 hours and 25 minutes. The moment of highest tide is not necessarily when the Moon is nearest to zenith or nadir, but the period of the forcing still determines the time between high tides.

 

... As the Earth rotates, the magnitude and direction of the tidal force at any particular point on the Earth's surface change constantly; although the ocean never reaches equilibrium—there is never time for the fluid to "catch up" to the state it would eventually reach if the tidal force were constant—the changing tidal force nonetheless causes rhythmic changes in sea surface height.

 

so there is not enough water mass or room in a glass or ca'ranium for this lag to build. does that make sense as a support of the assertion?

 

then as to the mosquito. it seems here that the author has calculated the gravitational attraction of the mosquito right on us, though this seems to give a false impression he is talking about how we feel its "weight" which would be due to earth's gravitational attraction, not the mosquito's. so assuming the 'squito is just next to a person but not touching and calculate it's gravitational force on a peep at that distance and then calculate the moon's gravitation force at its distance and compare the 2. :ideamaybenot: unfortunately i'm a clod at doing such calculations. :kick:

 

how does that sound for deepening? :help: :D

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Ninja'd by Turtle, but this post took too long for me to write for me to dump it :)

 

The deformation of the geoid due to the moon is in the neighborhood of half a metre. This is an egregious enough effect, indeed it is at the origin of tides and look at what they can reach in places like Fundy Bay, that article even mentions that it causes tides, while downsizing it compared to an eensy weensy mosquito. So, aside from the point of new moon being equivalent to full moon, how does that article get around this?

 

The simple answer is that because gravity is inversely proportional to the square of distance, a mosquito hovering over the water has dramatically less effect over water a few meters away. By comparison, the tiny effect of the moon's gravity is relatively constant, as the distance between one patch of water and the moon and another patch of water a few meters away is practically the same.

 

As practice for me in latex, let's do the math to see if the moon's gravitational effects on me are roughly equivalent to a mosquito on my arm.

Mass of the moon 7.348 × 1022 kg

Mass of a mosquito 2.5 × 10-6 kg

My mass 9.0 × 10 1 kg

Average distance Earth to Moon 3.84 × 108 m

Distance mosquito to my center of mass 5 × 10-1 m

Gravitational Constant 6.674 × 10-11N(m/kg)2

 

Force from moon

 

[math]\left( \frac{6.674 \times 10^{-11} N m^2}{kg^2} \right) \left( \frac{9.0 \times 10^1kg \cdot 7.348 \times 10^{22} kg}{(3.84 \times 10^8m)^2} \right) = 2.993 \times 10^{-3}N[/math]

 

Force from mosquito

 

[math]\left( \frac{6.674 \times 10^{-11} N m^2}{kg^2} \right) \left( \frac{9.0 \times 10^1kg \cdot 2.5 \times 10^{-6} kg}{(5 \times 10^{-1}m)^2} \right) = 6.007 \times 10^{-14}N[/math]

 

While both forces are small, they clearly are nowhere near equal. However, I suspect that the authors of the article used the distance from the mosquito to the arm instead of the distance from the center of gravity of the mosquito to the center of gravity of the person. A distance of a millimeter instead of half a meter gives a force of 1.502 × 10-2N, which is closer to what the author claims, but unless the mosquito is inside you, it is incorrect.

 

What we are missing here is that the phase of the moon is not an accurate predictor of the gravitational force of the moon, as we note that the gravitational force of the full moon and new moon are roughly equivalent. If gravity were an issue, we'd be measuring the difference in gravity at perigee and apogee, or the difference in gravity of the moon plus the sun (new moon) and the moon minus the sun (full moon). While technically incorrect, the article's reference to the gravitational influence of a mosquito illustrates the absurdity of this notion. Likewise, since the moon passes overhead roughly once a day, not once a month, any perceived monthly effect cannot be attributed to gravity.

 

The only differences between the phases of the moon noticeable by a human on Earth would be the amount and frequency of light experienced by the person. Seasonal affective disorder is the only thing I can think of where quality and amount of light affects human behavior, but this is due to a lack of sunlight, not an abundance of dim light like we experience (only when we go outside) during a full moon. Fundamentally, I think all that is involved is a mixture of confirmation bias and mythology.

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Both of you have at least a point or two but neither is quite there yet.

 

Sure the reason for the mosquito being irrelevant is that its effect is so acutely local; it can't reach more than a few square mm of skin. For this very reason it would also make more sense to make the comparison in terms of field i. e. force per unit mass, than calculating force on 90 kg. Anyway JM I don't see why you think your numbers contradict that article, your figure for the 'squito is almost 5 times that for the moon.

 

Now for the more complicated stuff, which makes it more interesting. Usually I go somewhat the opposite way of CraigD, I only sort out the details when I'm trying to get my software to work properly, but I'll be less lazy here. The effect of the moon itself has a daily cycle but with half the period, because the geoid's deformation is symmetric to the first order (a reasonable approx). The amplitude of this daily cycle is modulated by the combined effect of the sun, also by the difference between perigee/apogee and to much lees extent perhelion/aphelion. Now these other two aren't in sync with the first but the perigee has roughly twice the period of the effect of phases, given the equivalence of "opposite" points of the latter. This means that sometimes the excursion is a bit greater at full moon than at new moon and sometimes vice versa. Of course the perihelion is about annual and certainly the least effect.

 

In short it isn't perfectly true that there is only a daily effect; it is the main one but it is modulated, and mainly on a bi-weekly basis.

 

Now all this was concerning the gravitational field itself, not the effects, through it, on other things. True that there is a lag in the deformation of ocean surfaces compared to that of the geoid, due to the times for water to move being not negligible in ratio to the 12-hourly period. But this won't be of any concern in arguing for or against lunacy, for the same reasons as a glass of water shows no effect while the tides in many places are much greater than the half metre I mentioned yesterday. We're not talking about the surface between water and air. Nope.

 

So, the next step would be: what about it could possibly be having an effect on dogs and people, even without them roaming the lands at night? Half a metre isn't such a small distance in ratio to the average Joe or Sue's size, how should we go about reckoning whether it, and its variation during each month, has a significant or negligible effect on folks?

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Q- I showed the gravitational effect of a mosquito to be 0.00000000002 times smaller than the gravitational effect of the moon on my body. The 5 times figure is incorrect, as it does not use center of mass to center of mass as r. Regardless, three thousandths of a Newton is hardly anything to get excited about, regardless of how detailed you wish to calculate the daily/monthly/yearly modulation.

 

Let's ignore everything else that proponents of lunar mysticism ignore, such as the tree I'm leaning against, the house 20 meters away, or the lady next to me. For simplicity, let's assume we are at sea level on a perfectly spherical Earth and the moon and sun are directly overhead and both are as near to me as possible, and compare the difference in gravitational pull to the instance when the moon and the sun are aligned on the other side of the Earth and as far as possible from me. This will give the maximum possible difference in gravitational effects by both the moon and the sun on my body. NOTE: The radius of the Earth is too small to show up in the significant digits of the distances being used in the calculations, so it is ignored.

 

Radius of the Earth 6.371 × 106m

Perihelion 1.471 × 1011m

Aphelion 1.521 × 1011m

Mass of the sun 1.989 × 1030kg

Perigee of the moon 3.626 × 108m

Apogee of the moon 4.054 × 108m

Mass of the moon 7.348 1022kg

 

Moon at perigee + Earth at perihelion

3.357 × 10-3 + 5.521 × 10-2 = 5.857 × 10-2N

 

Moon at apogee + Earth at aphelion

2.686 × 10-3 + 5.164 × 10-2 = 5.433 × 10-2N

 

Maximum possible difference in gravitational effects of sun and moon at any location in their orbits

5.857 × 10-2N - 5.433 × 10-2N = 4.24 × 10-3N

 

Now, lets apply that miniscule gravitational force to something we can relate to. The mass of the Earth is 5.974 × 1024kg. At sea level (actually mean radius of the Earth), I experience 884.1N of force from Earth's gravitation. If I climb a ladder 15 meters, I will experience a change in gravitational force form the Earth equal to the maximum possible difference in forces from the sun and the moon. I don't feel like messing with the formatting to show my work, have a look at it at wolfram here to check:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=sqrt+%28%286.674e-11*90*5.974e24%29%2F%286.674e-11*90*5.974e24%2F%286.371e6%29^2-.00424%29%29

 

Clearly, if anyone claims lunacy, there is no way we could possibly claim any difference in gravitational effects due to the position of the sun and the moon to be the cause.

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