tidal effects

I'll skip the barbed comments of LB and try to stay on the topic which I see is the cause and not the effects of tides. We know Newton observed tides have cycles that generate spring and neap tides that are proportional to the third power of the distance to the moon and sun. He therefore made a model that does a good job of predicting tides. This was a very practcal solution to the problem of the day and is still in use today which demostrates how well he made things. As for the cause of tides he knew not and he was aware of that in my opinion. We can get very good approximate predictions for tides anywhere on Earth using Newton's model with improvements that have been factored into this model. But, in my opinion, that fact proves nothing at all about the cause of tides. It is clear from other threads at this message board that tidal effects are caused by force that is proportional to the one over radius squared law. The cause of tides is gravity and gravity is a 1/r^2 law. Now, as to my view of the moon being the only cause of tides on Earth, please remember I mean 99% of the tide leaving a small part for other factors such as the sun and air pressure changes.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Jim</i>
<br />I'll skip the barbed comments of LB ... Now, as to my view of the moon being the only cause of tides on Earth, please remember I mean 99% of the tide leaving a small part for other factors such as the sun and air pressure changes.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">In science, personal opinions count for very little. If you wish to put forth as a hypothesis that the Sun's contribution to tides is 1% or less of the Moon's, then you need to show the reasoning, analysis, observations, or experiments that support your hypothesis.

Otherwise, it would be just a personal belief system. And when those are expressed in a scientific forum, they tend to invite barbed comments. -|Tom|-

Tom, It is not the want of a hypothesis as much as an observation or an examination of the facts reguarding this detail of Newton's model of the tidal effect. It is interesting how throughout time things are assumed true simply because they work and how only when things are totally out of wack new ideas have a chance to develop. This is a process that in my opinion lead to the down fall of Rome. And things are only a little different now than when Rome was at its peak. They had slave labor to protect and now it is more abstract things that need to be protected at any cost.

[Jim, this thread, 7/16, 13:48]

"To be clear on my view here, I say the sun has no effect on the spring/neap tide cycle and that the cause is the moon only."



[Jim, this thread, 7/16, 19:35]

"The way I would explain why the moon causes tides and not the sun ... ".



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[Jim, this thread, 7/20, 12:01]

"Now, as to my view of the moon being the only cause of tides on Earth, please remember I mean 99% of the tide leaving a small part for other factors such as the sun and air pressure changes."



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Good for you, Jim. Some progress.

Your numbers are still off a "little", but I know you can do it if you just put your mind to it.

LB, You are being very picky in the above post but at least you are keeping up on my new idea about what causes tides. The 1% of the tide that is not caused by the moon is a comment related to the TVF post about tidal effects. I know air pressure has an effect and that is a solar induced tide but not what we are kicking around here. The moon causes spring and neap tides for reasons not yet discovered and those reasons are new to gravity rules I guess although maybe the rules are established and used in some other way that I am ignorant of. And that may well be the case. Anyway the model is very good the spring tide occurs when the Earth, moon and sun are in line. The neap tide occurs when the Earth and moon are in line with the Earth/moon orbit around the sun. If you do a simple arrow model of the forces maybe you can see how this all fits together. And if not its ok you have a good model to predict tides anyway so why bother with this silly bit?

HAR HAR HAR!

(If you think that's picky, try this. Sure, it's just a nit. But lately I'm in a nit-picking mood when it comes to your ideas.)

[Jim] "I'll ... try to stay on the topic which I see is the cause and not the effects of tides."

The title of this thread (the one *you* picked) is "Tidal effects".

Why didn't you name it "Tidal causes"? (That's a rhetorical question.)