Abstract
IT has often been suggested that the earth must have been in a liquid state at an epoch near the very beginning of its formation. I wish to give an argument which confirms this view. If we suppose that the earth was originally in a gaseous state, we can imagine a model, which we call the globe, denned as a poly tropic gas sphere of mass 6 × 1027 gm., equal to the present mass of the earth. Assuming (following Jeffreys) that the central temperature must have been equal to the effective temperature of the sun at the time of formation, that is, about 6000° K., and considering the polytropic indices n = 3, 1 or ½, one finds a radius of 2·2 × 1010, 1·28 × 1010 or 1·24 × 1010 cm. The smaller values of n correspond to a lower compressibility than is generally assumed for the stars (Eddington). The values of the density are such that the material of the globe is very nearly a perfect gas. The pressure and temperature in the globe can then be calculated from Emden's tables, as functions of the distance from the centre.
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MERCIER, A. The Liquid State of the Primitive Earth. Nature 141, 201 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/141201b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/141201b0
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