Quote:
Originally Posted by Pazuzu
Where did the Moon go? I said if it stopped ORBITING. In your scenario, the "wave" would continue rotating the Earth, loosing amplitude from friction. In real life, it would stand still, under the Moon, at full height. If the Moon suddenly disappeared, the tides would all but instantly disappear too.
I don't care what geology or oceanography told you, the fact is, what PHYSICS tells you is the truth here, not what geology or oceanography tells you.
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Now I don't know what to make of my geophysics class.
How is what I said wrong? If the moon really did instantly disappear, the tides would not disappear instantly, because they are a wave. If you were to ignore the cause and just observe the tides, you would be able to imagine a wave with two crests and two troughs approximately every 25 hours. If you drop a pebble in a pond, the pebble instantly disappears, but the waves keep going for a little while longer. I don't know how long it would take for the moon tides to go away; maybe a few days, maybe longer.
I don't quite know what you mean by the moon not orbiting. It sounds like you mean to say, "if the moon stayed at one point above the surface of the earth." In that case, the moon would be in geostationary orbit around the earth.
Right now, it takes about 27.3 days for the moon to orbit earth. In your scenario, the moon would orbit the earth every 24 hours. Anyway, if the moon were in geostationary orbit above earth, then the high point of the ocean would be stuck in one place, like you say. And it would not be noticed until sophisticated surveying techniques discovered the phenomenon. But the sun's tides would be noticeable, superimposed on the stationary moon "tide".