Quote:
Originally Posted by Pazuzu
I'm a physicist, and as much as I hate to say it...you're wrong. Sorry.
The term "tidal" and "tide" come from gravitational tidal forces. Any gravitational source puts several different stresses on any other object...it doesn't just pull it.
One of the forces is a squeezing in the transverse direction. Another is a lengthening in the radial direction. These two force together cause the ocean to form an oval (more properly, and ellipse) around the Earth (which is also being squeezed and lengthened into an ellipse, but on a MUCH smaller scale).
The math behind it is pretty complex, but the result is well understood. It's not because of an ancient stable tidal wave traveling around the planet.
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I've read my explanation in many places. It depends on how you look at it. A physicist, maybe it was Brian Greene, even went to so far to say that there is no such thing as a gravitational force. It's just an illusion caused by the warping of the fabric of space-time.
In any case, this link gives a pretty good explanation of the two tides.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/venice/tides.html