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Full moon and werewolves

erwinl

Illuminator
erwinl
Joined
Sep 5, 2008
Messages
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When I went to my work this morning I saw that the moon was almost full and alread waxing a bit. That meant that we had survived another werewolf time. :)

But that got me thinking (hey, it happens). What is the maximum time we would be at risk from werewolves, supposing they can only come out during the true time of full moon?

I know we can see a bit more than half of the moons surface from the Earth (55% isn't it?) and I can imagine we can see the most of it when the moon is closest to the Earth.

That would mean that a full moon would last longer than a new moon and certainly longer than a lunar eclipse. If I got my intuition right.

But how long would the longest possible full moon last?
 
Let me put it this way, you are okay for now-hoooooooooowoooooooo
 
erwinl said:
I know we can see a bit more than half of the moons surface from the Earth (55% isn't it?)
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Only over time. At any one time, only about 50%.

and I can imagine we can see the most of it when the moon is closest to the Earth.
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No, but when closest to the earth, it does appear larger (and proportionally brighter)

That would mean that a full moon would last longer than a new moon and certainly longer than a lunar eclipse. If I got my intuition right.

But how long would the longest possible full moon last?
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Astronomically, the full moon happens at the moment the moon passes closest to the line from the sun to the earth. Any time away from that moment, it's not quite a full moon. But there's not much difference visible about 24 hours either side. Beyond that, most can easily tell one side isn't quite as round as the other.
 
Well most lore has them active on three nights, the night of the full moon, and the nights directly on either side. How that equates to % of the moon being visible I don't know.
 
Gawdzilla said:
In the movies the moon is always full, and only out at night.
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Technically correct, but I recall an episode of Gerry Anderson's UFO that showed the moon out in daylight. It did stick with me because like ceilings, you don't see it often in films.
 
erwinl said:
When I went to my work this morning I saw that the moon was almost full and alread waxing a bit. That meant that we had survived another werewolf time. :)
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Huh? If it's "almost full" and waxing (which means getting "bigger"), you're just approaching werewolf time. Did you mean "a bit less than full and waning"?

erwinl said:
But that got me thinking (hey, it happens). What is the maximum time we would be at risk from werewolves, supposing they can only come out during the true time of full moon?

I know we can see a bit more than half of the moons surface from the Earth (55% isn't it?) and I can imagine we can see the most of it when the moon is closest to the Earth.

That would mean that a full moon would last longer than a new moon and certainly longer than a lunar eclipse. If I got my intuition right.

But how long would the longest possible full moon last?
Click to expand...

We see 55% because of libration. The moon wobbles about a little. We don't see 55% all at once.

If you want to get all astronomical about it, it's only "full" when in direct opposition to the sun. That's pretty much instantaneous. Or, at most, the duration of a total eclipse.

Gawdzilla said:
In the movies the moon is always full, and only out at night.
Click to expand...

Well, to be fair, the full moon IS basically only out at night. I've heard of woo-meisters declaring that the moon is never up in the daytime; or alternatively, noticing it for the first time and thinking it's the end of the world.
 
erwinl said:
When I went to my work this morning I saw that the moon was almost full and alread waxing a bit. That meant that we had survived another werewolf time. :)

But that got me thinking (hey, it happens). What is the maximum time we would be at risk from werewolves, supposing they can only come out during the true time of full moon?

I know we can see a bit more than half of the moons surface from the Earth (55% isn't it?) and I can imagine we can see the most of it when the moon is closest to the Earth.

That would mean
Click to expand...

You are talking about movie werewolves. There is no ancient legend or mythology that associates werewolves with the moon. Not even the most superstitious person before 1940 AD believed that humans turned to wolves when and only when the moon was full. There were superstitious people who believed that humans could turn to wolves and back. For some reason, astrologers never weighed in on the topic of werewolves. So the werewolves/moon connection was a false meme started in the movies.

The association between werewolves and the full moon was a meme that was first propagated by the first werewolf movie, 'Werewolf in London'. There was an radiation of lunar werewolves following another movie, 'The Wolf man'. Since then, there have been many variations on the idea of men who change to wolves at night during a full moon. No detailed analysis have ever been done on this fictional and nontraditional correlation between werewolves and the moon.

The bad effect of silver on werewolves is also a movie meme. Evil spirits and monsters in ancient legend are often dispatched with iron. I don't mean just cutting or trauma. Creatures who are supernaturally evil just have to touch iron to be hurt badly. So a werewolf who runs when he sees iron is a mythologically correct monster. Running from silver is just a Universal Pictures fantasy.

I have better questions.

1) What happens to a movie werewolf at the poles of the earth during the time part of the moon and part of the sun are both showing?

2) Could you delay or advance the transformation by taking the airplane or fast ship to the other side of the earth?

3) What happens to a movie werewolf during a lunar eclipse?

4) What would happen to movie werewolf who was taken to the moon in a spaceship?

5) Can one prevent the movie werewolf change either by blocking the moonlight?

6) Can one prevent the movie werewolf change using parabolic flight to cancel the tidal force of the moon?

7) What happens to a movie werewolf in an air conditioned cell in the center of the earth?

8) What happens to a movie werewolf on other planets that have their own moons?

9) Can a werewolf in male werewolf in wolf form impregnate a canonical female wolf?

10) How effective are silver alloys against the movie werewolf?

11) Are the changes in morphology in movie werewolves genetic (i.e., DNA) or epigenetic (e.g., RNA)?

12) What happens to fetal movie werewolves?


Next time ask about the tooth fairy!
 
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Gawdzilla said:
In the movies the moon is always full, and only out at night.
Click to expand...

Full moons only come out at night. The full moon occurs when the moon is almost opposite the sun relative to the earth. So there can be only a few minutes when part of the full moon and part of the sun are out.

At the poles of the earth, there may be a very short time period when both the sun and a full moon are both out. However, this can be important when 'Thirty Days of Night X' where the vampires meet the wolf people at the north pole.

A lunar eclipse occurs when the moon is precisely opposite the sun relative to the earth. A lunar eclipse can only occur when the sun is down.
 
Minor gnit to gpick: Werewolf of London. Henry Hull for the film's purposes was an inhabitant of the city not just a visitor as in would imply!!!!!
 
Hellbound said:
I always wondered, if a werewolf can only be killed by silver bullets, how much does it ruin his day to go through a wood chipper? Assuming regeneration rather than simple invulnerability, or course.
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The wood chipper ruins 'their' day not 'his' day. After regeneration there are a large number of werewolves. Further, full moons only appear at night. So the wood chipper really ruins 'their night'.
 
I love a "Farside" cartoon in which you see the artist, all clawed up and damaged, next to a canvas showing a portrait of a man, one side of which is normal and the other side is increasingly a werewolf. Of course the full moon is showing through a window and the werewolf side of the image is unfinished.
 
Hercules Rockefeller said:
Everyone turn into werewolves at full moon. It's only just for one Planck second though.
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<pendantry>
There is no Planck second. There's a Planck time, however, and I presume this is what you meant.

But even that cannot be correct. It presumes that the sun illuminates exactly half the moon, and that the viewer must be at a specific point (or line) in order to see this half and nothing else.

But this fails for multiple reasons. First, the sun will illuminate slightly more than half the moon, because the sun is not a point source. Second, we can see slightly less than half the moon. Third, the variation in angle of our line-of-sight cannot allow for a full moon at only the point where we view the illumination of the moon symmetrically, because that would require that the line of sight and the sun-moon line to be parallel and overlapping. But that can only happen during a lunar eclipse. Every other time there is a "full moon", there is always a measurably nonzero angle between our line of sight and the line between the center of the sun and moon, because the moon is out of the plane of orbit of the earth around the sun.

Our definition for what counts as a full moon must therefore include a nonzero angular tolerance to at least account for each of the factors I listed above. I haven't crunched the numbers so I don't know if that would extend the relevant period to second, minutes, or hours, but it's definitely going to extend it past a Planck time.
 
Darwin123 said:
Full moons only come out at night. The full moon occurs when the moon is almost opposite the sun relative to the earth. So there can be only a few minutes when part of the full moon and part of the sun are out.

At the poles of the earth, there may be a very short time period when both the sun and a full moon are both out. However, this can be important when 'Thirty Days of Night X' where the vampires meet the wolf people at the north pole.

A lunar eclipse occurs when the moon is precisely opposite the sun relative to the earth. A lunar eclipse can only occur when the sun is down.
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Oh sure. Who paid you to say that?
 
Trebuchet said:
If you want to get all astronomical about it, it's only "full" when in direct opposition to the sun. That's pretty much instantaneous. Or, at most, the duration of a total eclipse.
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That could be so if nothing was moving, but the moon is moving and the surface you are on is moving and the earth is moving and the sun is not a point source. Do the math; I can't. Probably the eclipse is the best answer.
 
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