Quote:
Originally Posted by Pazuzu
1) I was quite kind in my first post, and told him that he was wrong, then explained the truth. I'm sorry if some of you thought I was being mean  but it's a fact that his oceanography class was telling him something wrong, and highly simplified.
2) Wiki?? That link not only doesn't really say anything, it also ignores the most important part of tidal effects, which is the tangential compression of an object. It is as much of an effect as the radial extension.
3) By "Moon stop orbiting" I mean it locks into a geostationary orbit. If there was a large wave traveling around the planet, it would continue to do so, since water waves are a transfer of energy. Tidal motion is NOT a transfer of energy. It's water being pulled and twisted by gravity, nothing more. So, if magically the Moon locked into a geosync orbit right now, instantly, the tides would also stop traveling around the planet instantly, since they are integrally locked in the gravitational web of the Moon.
4) Troll? For answering the question and correcting someone so they don't continue to have the wrong idea of something for the rest of their life? Is that a troll in your mind? |
OK, Mike, I found a website that supports your claims. (Every other website I found doesn't agree very well, if at all.)
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/scenario/tides.htm
I'm willing to believe this website and am heading down to Safeway for a package of crow. Give Mike a Kewpie doll! As a scientist, I only want the truth, even if it dispels what I learned from my august professors at the University of California. In my defense, the website does say that most textbooks have it wrong, even post grad books and physics books. I nothing else, I've learned here that the tides are damned complicated.
(After all that, the author of that website better be right.)