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The other day I heard a friend talking about how "the moon's gravity affects our internal organs." This sounds like bull, but is it? And if so, how would I correct their misinformation?

I think the reason some people might believe this claim is because we’re taught in school that the moon’s gravity causes the tides. I think the reasoning goes, “well if the moon’s gravity can affect the tides, surely it can affect smaller things too”

Deestan ,

It’s a very small force. If you consider such small forces to have an effect, you must also consider gravitational pull of objects that have the same or a larger effect: passing trucks, entering buildings, passing a mountain, going upstairs, going underground.

Also, all movement will cause same type of force on you (acceleration) plus change your body’s alignment to Earth gravity has a large effect on gravity’s pull on organs: shifting position, leaning, walking, driving, taking an elevator, lying down, figeting, trying to stand on a wooden floor, all have several orders of magnitude more effect on you than the moon.

In short: You can’t hear someone whispering ten rows behind you at a Metallica concert.

NeoNachtwaechter ,

Gravity affects all things with a mass>0, and nothing can be done against it.

Haven’t you read your Einstein? ;-)

mojo , (edited )

Well it does affect the gravitational pull, and were like 70% water. So yes it does fuck with us on a biological level. So full moons causing people to go crazy is a real thing, but it’s exaggerated of course and very subtle.

Idk why I’m getting downvotes, this is a very real thing www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7322537/

venoft , (edited )
@venoft@lemmy.world avatar

First of all, the amount of water in your body doesn’t matter. Gravity doesn’t just affect water.

Secondly, the gravity of the moon on earth is about 1/10 millionth of the gravity of earth itself. So basically you lose more weight by spitting once than you lose because of the moons gravity.

And thirdly, why only during full moon? The moon is still there even when it’s not full, so the gravity is also still there. Even during the day the moon is still there.

All this full moon stuff is just pseudoscience.

marionberrycore ,

oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/gltides.html

If the great lakes only see a fluctuation of 5cm max, I don’t think it is affecting the human body in any meaningful way.

Echo5 ,

I would ask your friend what the “so what” of that is. I have heard a lot of anecdotal evidence from teachers experiencing more crazy behavior from their kids around the full moon or people sleeping or feeling worse around that time. Might just be something we don’t understand yet, but again, what’s your friends answer to the “so what”? We can’t do anything about it, as far as I know.

teuto ,

people sleeping or feeling worse around that time.

Well there’s a great big bastard of a nightlight out so I guess that makes sense.

JustAManOnAToilet ,

smug grin on its face too

state_electrician ,

You can travel around the world in a plane to escape gravity’s evil pull!

Tomassci ,
@Tomassci@kbin.social avatar

I do think that in fact if you embrace your friend, he has a higher gravitational pull on you than you moon. Or so I believe, the math should work itself out.

Norgur ,

Take an inflatable swimming pool, let it sit outside. Notice any tide? No? Well, why would your kidneys have tides then?

HelixDab2 ,

Then why do I pee more when the moon is full, huh? Checkmate, atheists!

/s

bradorsomething ,

Fine, I’ll admit there’s a god… just put away the moon pee!

Myrkvir ,

The moon actually pulls on the land a little bit but it’s such a small amount it’s only measurable with very specific instruments and in large timetables. Not enough to really affect any individual on the planet.

Smokeydope ,
@Smokeydope@lemmy.world avatar

On a very very technical level kinda yes, a weird quirk of gravity is that it has infinite range even though it follows the inverse square law. This means that the moons gravity imparts some amount of force on you. Not just the moon either, all objects in the observable universe impart some force on you, as do you impart some force on them. The problem Is that this force is so absolutely infinitesimally small It may as well be zero. So in the world of theoretical physics yes kind of but your friend probably isn’t a physicist. Sounds like they’re more woo woo astrological magic type people that believe the moon imparts some metaphysical healing magic on their insides.

PlexSheep ,
@PlexSheep@feddit.de avatar

Would that logic not extend to all mass in the universe, regardless of observability?

Smokeydope ,
@Smokeydope@lemmy.world avatar

Yes I believe so. Adding "observable’ was unnecessary on my part.

cadekat ,

I’m not so sure. Gravity only travels at the speed of light so mass outside of the observable universe hasn’t been able to affect us yet.

Smokeydope ,
@Smokeydope@lemmy.world avatar

This is a great point. I remember last year ligo detecting g waves from the merging black holes and experimentally verified this.

Neato ,
@Neato@kbin.social avatar

No. If gravity on such a small scale affected us, we'd have evolved to incorporate it as many animals do for navigate, or evolve to ignore it. We did the latter, if it was ever necessary. The gravity of the earth is many magnitudes greater. And you can prove that the shifting gravity from the moon is moot by the sheer fact that you can sleep on your back, either side, or stomach and not feel inverse affects. You can even move around through the night, like the moon does.

Also the tides thing is half right. About half as strong in tidal energy is the sun. Solar tides exist. So the question would also need to be "does the sun's gravity affect us?" And the answer is the same as before.

borkcorkedforks ,

In theory it has some kind of affect but not anything anyone would notice. Like I'm not even sure it would show up on a scale and anyone trying to measure it with something sensitive enough to do so would have a hell of a time separating the change from normal things like eating, going to the bathroom, sweating, or just breathing.

If we say for a moment that it does have an affect on people the next question would be what effect might there be. Again I think a major issue would be measuring results when there would be so many other things at play. Also what are we measuring? What might the proposed effect be?

This idea mostly sounds like pseudo science or a half assed attempt at supporting some new age idea.

atlasraven31 ,

Ask them how the moon effects weightless astronauts. I imagine you’ll get a confused response before they find some way to integrate it into their narrative.

lando55 ,

That might explain werewolves. Since the full moon is heavier it attracts wolf enzymes that are usually stored in the pancreas to be released into the blood stream.

Nemo ,

It weighs the same, clearly the moons surface is ionizing reflected light in a way that triggers the reaction.

squib ,

This is why they only change during a full moon; less moonlight than that is not enough to catalyze the reaction.

Mouselemming ,

You’re forgetting the sun’s gravity. Moon phases are caused by the relative angles of sun/moon/earth. So are the various levels of tides. It must affect werewolves as well.

AmidFuror ,

Not as much as vampires.

u202307011927 ,
@u202307011927@feddit.de avatar

I frickin love lemmy

new_guy ,

Maybe your friend is thinking about menstrual cycles? Of course they aren’t really influenced by the moon but they (often) have a period of 1 month, like the moon phases.

Contramuffin ,

Iirc, this is actually true. There has been some studies that suggest that the moon phase does influence menstrual cycles. I don’t fully remember what the researchers concluded, but I remember vaguely that it was something like, not seeing the moon (if the sky is overcast, for instance) doesn’t affect the menstrual cycle, but looking at the moon will “reset” the cycle in some way.

new_guy , (edited )

Well, now you made me find this paper: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abe1358?intcmp…

OP’s friend might have read something based on it too. This is really weird. I guess more reading is necessary to know if this paper was already debunked or not

Epicurus0319 ,

Yeah, archaeologists have found evidence of women timing them with groups of 28 scratches on stone- perhaps trying to conceive?

Mouselemming ,

Or avoid conception

Or at least know when not to wear white pants

Izzy , (edited )
@Izzy@lemmy.world avatar

Edit: The moons gravity affects everything on the planet. That doesn’t mean it is harmful. It’s going to be very insignificant.

Epicurus0319 ,

For billions of years. There was once a time when tides were massive and the moon took up most of the night sky (it’s slowly being slingshoted out of orbit and will eventually become a dwarf planet orbiting between earth and mars, but the sun will likely engulf the earth system before that happens)

twistypencil ,

Maybe bacteria could be affected by the gravity

Buffalox ,

If the bacteria has a mass of 1 millionth the mass of a human, the gravitational effect the moon has on it, would similarly be 1 millionth the effect it has on a human.

twistypencil ,

Stupid physics. 🙄

excel ,
@excel@lemmy.megumin.org avatar

I don’t think that last part is entirely accurate. The reason the weak gravity causes tides is actually because it’s acting over the entire ocean all at once.

It turns out that the ocean is a bit heavy… when you add up the entire mass of all of the water, this imparts quite a substantial bit of potential energy. This can be seen as a “bulge” outward in the moon’s direction, making the planet look a little “squished”.

If the planet were perfectly smooth, this probably would be fairly stable as the bulge wrapped around the planet… however, because we have continents and the sea floor, this movement of water crashes into the land and causes ripple effects with a huge amount of kinetic energy.

I don’t think it would take more that a few years for this process to ramp up to our current level of tides, if there were some way of doing such a ramp up in a controlled way.

Izzy ,
@Izzy@lemmy.world avatar

Good point. You are probably right.

cizra ,

The ocean is not only very heavy, it’s also very long (tall, viewed sideways from POV of the Moon). This means the bits near the moon are more affected by gravity, pulled harder.

There’s so much fun to be had with this effect. When the moon is overhead, you’re stretched out an unmeasurably tiny bit, for example. It also causes tall objects to orient themselves perpendicular to moon (one end is lighter, the other end is heavier. Just like a weighted stick floats upright in water).

Oh, and then there’s the fact that your head (which could be seen as kinda momentarily orbiting the moon, with orbital period of once a month) has a higher orbital velocity than your feet, thus your head is constantly dragged sideways, and lying down helps alleviate this effect (only your nose is now pulled off your face, not your whole head). This is the reason why it’s easier to fall asleep when lying down.

AmidFuror ,

Is it time that's allowed the moon's gravity to affect the tides? I think it would cause tides even if it suddenly appeared out of nowhere into orbit.

Now, I'd need someone else to explain why the effect on the tides is so visible. I'd suggest that it is because the water in the oceans both has a huge mass and is fluid, so its shape can change easily. There's a difference between the moon pulling a portion of the water closer to it on one side of the planet and the moon "stretching" a person who is caught between the Earth's and moon's gravities.

The bulge on the opposite side of the Earth from the moon is because the Earth is being pulled away from the water.

qfjp ,

The moon would affect the tides regardless of how long it’s been there. Calculating the effect of the moon’s gravity on the earth is a standard exercise in a graduate classical physics course. In essence, the moon’s gravity “squashes” the earth at the two poles, causing tides at the nearest and farthest end of the earth.

sloonark ,

Why is this being upvoted when it is blatantly false?

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