Quote:
Originally Posted by adman
Not really. You get the same effect driving a car around and around a roundabout. Re-occurring and revolving scenery, the car always presents the same side to the centre of the roundabout - but the car is not spinning on its axis. It has forward, but curved motion.
Imagine this - the olympic sport of hammer throw. Big heavy person swinging a ball on the end of a chain. Once it gets up to speed they rotate around their common centre of mass. The ball always presents the same face to the thrower, but it is not spinning on its axis. A tiny observer sitting on the ball's surface would get revolving/re-occurring scenery.
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In this example the ball and person are physically linked, the moon and earth are not.
Take a view from space above the moon such that the earth was out of your field of view. You would observe the moon rotating on its axis. It's difficult to visualise from our earth bound reference point.