"Nav" wrote in message ...
Jeff Morris wrote:
"Nav" wrote in message
...
F= mr omega^2. The distance from the barycenter to all points on earth
is NOT the same.

As the site expalins in the next paragraph, only the center of the Earth rotates
around the barycenter. Other points rotate around neighboring points.

Anyway, the site clearly shows in Fig. 2 that it is the
_DIFFERENCE_ between gravity and centrifugal force that makes the tides,
not gravity alone.

We never disagreed on this point.

HOLY BACKPEDAL!!!!!!

I'm not sure you really want to go back over this thread - your record is rather
shaky. Mine, however, has been quite consistent. Remember, I started by posting
sites with differing approaches to show that this problem can be looked at in
different ways. I then made my first comment about Centrifugal force with:

"Remember that Centrifugal Force may be a handy explanation, but it is a
"fictional force" that only appears real to an observer in an accelerating frame
of reference. Therefore, whenever it is used to explain something, there must
be another explanation that works in a non-accelerating frame."

but then you started claiming that differential gravity wasn't needed, I responded
with:

"Before I thought you were just arguing philosophically how much we should credit
centrifugal force, but now it appears you haven't really looked at the math at
all. The reason why "differential gravity" is invoked is because it represents
the differing pull of the Moon on differing parts of the Earth. Although this
force is all obviously towards the Moon, when you subtract off the centrifugal
force this is what is left. It is this differing pull that causes the two
tides."

or, in other words, exactly what I just said above.

a few posts later:
"Given that, your argument falls apart. The centrifugal force is exactly the
same on all points of the Earth, and (not by coincidence) is exactly opposite
the net gravitational force. What is left over is the differential gravity."

The bottom line here is that the tides are properly described by the differential
gravity equation. Centrifugal force can be used to explain how an outward force can
be generated, but it is not needed, and it does not yield the equation that describes
the tides.

Frankly, your the one who started this by claiming that the traditional explanation of
tides is fundamentally flawed, and that the differential force normally cited is not
what causes the tides. You really haven't produced any coherent evidence to support
this claim.