Every so often, the sea rises and falls tens of meters. What is the reason for this extraordinary phenomenon to occur on our planet? And how it works? The answer is in the stars.
It seems incredible that the sand under your feet, the shells and urchins in the rock, were under a couple of meters of salt water. In a short time, the sea rises and falls without compassion, dragging in the ebb everything that it bathes, towards the bottom of the sea. The tide is a very intense phenomenon, typical of a living world like ours, although not unique. But why is it produced? And what does the Moon and the Sun have to do with all this?
Acts 4:24
When they heard this, they with one accord lifted up their voice to God and said: O Lord, you are the one who made heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them.
We call this the changes of a fluid on the earth's surface. The tides are produced due to the gravitational force exerted by the sun and the Moon (and other celestial bodies) on our planet. Approximately two thirds of the earth's surface is water. Now, let's travel to space and observe the terrestrial sphere: it is not perfect, it is flattened and deformed. And more if we wait for certain moments of the lunar cycle.
The tides are produced because the gravitational force created by the two most powerful stars, the Sun and the Moon, attracts fluids like water in one of its axes. But it does not attract them in one direction but the deformation obeys an ellipse whose axis is directed by the force exerted. Thus, the greater this force, the greater the radius of the ellipse and, therefore, the greater the rise and fall of the tides. The tides are known since antiquity. There is a precise terminology of what type of tide it is, its situation and a host of other things.
Two are the main causes of the force generated by the tides: the Sun and the Moon. The tides are defined by some of the formulas that Newton described for classical mechanics. Without going into the cumbersome of the matter, the deformation of the sphere that forms the fluid depends, as we said, on the force exerted by the stars. Thus, when the moon and the sun pull on the same axis, the ellipse is greater and, therefore, the tide will be stronger. It is as if it were pulled from one of the two points of the shaft with greater force.
Also, when the force exerted by the Moon and the Sun are perpendicular, the axis will be the smallest. Thus, the tide will be much lighter. The maximum tide is called a living tide; and the minimum, dead tide.
We can not be like the waves of the sea that come and go, that sometimes are strong and others weak, that one hour are there on top and others there below. The inconstant do not go anywhere, do not realize their dreams, do not take hold on the road, do not achieve great victories
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