WI the moon wasn't tidally locked

Yes, this is ASB. But its a very serious, 'hard' ASB so it'd being posted here.

As we all know the moon takes 28 days to orbit the earth and it also takes 28 days to rotate itself hence we on earth always see the same side of the moon (note to the nitpickers- I know its not exactly this)

However.
WI the moon rotated such that its day lasted 16 days? (just a random number, feel free to change it) whilst the rest of the system is totally unaffected- Earth stays the same and it orbits in a month as per usual.

What effects would this have on the development of society on Earth?

I'd think here it becomes far more obvious the moon is another world, perhaps even it would lead to it being easier to figure out our earth is just one world amongst many.
Perhaps the moon becomes even more seen as the god's world?
 
Yes, this is ASB. But its a very serious, 'hard' ASB so it'd being posted here.

Nope, not really but it would need to be in an orbit that was further away than it is

I sometimes think we need a forum to post serious discussions relating POD's prior to the evolution of humans
 

Michael Busch

A separate sub-forum for pre-historical PODs is a good idea.

This case is pure ASB, though. The Moon tidally locks very quickly (on astronomical timescales), so even if you started it spinning faster it would rapidly damp down.

And of course, if the Moon's orbit were different, butterflies wipe us out.
 
A separate sub-forum for pre-historical PODs is a good idea.

This case is pure ASB, though. The Moon tidally locks very quickly (on astronomical timescales), so even if you started it spinning faster it would rapidly damp down.
Supposing we had a micro black-hole "nudge" the moon,
couldn't we have it still unlocked, supposing
the nudge happened, say,
about 2 centuries ago ?
 
Geographical PODs are ASB if we're assuming humanity despite a pod millions of years back and the less forums we have the better.
But anyway. OT.....
 
The change here is that the sky now has changes visible other than objects moving around. We have a 37-day period of lunar rotation, in addition to a 29-day period of lunar revolution. This will severely mess with mysticism and calendars.

Furthermore, the only logical conclusion here is that the Moon is a rotating body. If astronomers are already thinking about the Moon spinning, why not the Earth?
 

Michael Busch

Supposing we had a micro black-hole "nudge" the moon,
couldn't we have it still unlocked, supposing
the nudge happened, say,
about 2 centuries ago ?

Anything physical that spins up the Moon so rapidly would also have inconvenient side effects (moonquakes, earthquakes, the oceans sloshing around, Earth's rotation changing). Long-term spin up runs into tidal damping.

One option: have the Moon get trapped in a 3:2 spin-orbit resonance (i.e. rotation period is 2/3 orbital period), like Mercury. This requires an eccentric lunar orbit to begin with, which may be problematic, and the butterflies may get rid of all life on Earth, but it is not impossible.
 
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