This document summarizes 4 flaws in the current understanding of tides: 1) Tides cannot keep up with the supersonic speed of the moon's orbit around Earth. 2) Calculations show solar gravity should have a greater influence than lunar gravity, contrary to observations. 3) It is difficult to explain high tides on both sides of Earth. 4) Calculations show lunar gravity is too weak to explain tides. However, tide-generating forces have been proposed to explain tides, but this concept still cannot adequately address all flaws.

1. 4 Flaws
in the Current
“the Cause of Tides”
PPT 9
From the Article “Several Mistakes in the Understanding of Tides”
http://yeer.hubpages.com/hub/Several-Mistakes-in-the-Understanding-of-Tides
Written (Chinese) by Ye Sen
Translated (English) by Ye Er
1

2. Flaw 1:
It takes about 24 hours and 50 minutes for the
Moon to orbit the Earth. That is to say, the line
of the Moon’s gravity moves at a supersonic
speed along the white road (the projection of the
Moon’s motion trajectory onto the surface of the
Earth). But can tides keep up with such a speed?
2

3. Flaw 2:
If we do some math using the formula of
universal gravitation, we can get this result – the
solar gravitational force is stronger than the
lunar. About 162 times stronger. It’s far greater.
But this is just opposite from the fact based
upon the observation of tides - tides are more
influenced by the Moon.
3

4. Flaw 3:
Since tidal force is a type of force, it has its
direction. The phenomenon that tides occur on
the side of the Earth facing the Moon can be
explained by that. But tides occurring on the
opposite side of the Earth facing the moon is
really hard to imagine.
And in most places on the Earth, tides, whether
big or small, occur twice a day, once facing
towards the Moon, and once facing away from
the Moon. 4

5. Flaw 4:
Using the formula of universal gravitation, we
can get the result that the Moon’s gravity on a
certain waterbody on the surface of the Earth is
only about 1/280000 the Earth’s gravity on the
same waterbody. Does this gravity make any
sense?
5

6. However, about the flaws here mentioned,
"gravity" scientists have made some revisions.
They brought out a concept - tide-generating
forces. Tide-generating forces are just the result
of the calculus of the gravitational forces. In
nature, they are still gravitational forces. Let’s
assume that the tidal forces are believable, then
they only answer the questions in flaw 2 and
flaw 3. They can’t do anything about the
questions in flaw 1.
6

7. Should the lunar tidal force always point to the
Moon in the same direction as the gravitational
force exerted by the Moon? Can the tidal force fly
the tides at a supersonic speed?
About the flaw 4, this explanation only makes
worse. Because the tidal force is divided by a
distance based on the calculation of the
gravitational force (tidal force is inversely
proportional to the cube of the distance), which
only makes it much more negligible and unreliable.
7

8. And many other evidences can be used to negate
this theory.
According to “tide-generating forces” theory,
the largest tidal range should occur around the
white road (the projection of the Moon’s motion
trajectory onto the surface of the Earth). That is
between 23 °North Latitude and 23 °South
Latitude, but the largest tidal range occurs at
around 45 °North Latitude on the Earth.
8

9. Moreover, according to the calculation of the
tidal forces, the conditions of the occurrences of
the tides facing towards and away from the
Moon are equal. So we can deduce that
anywhere if qualified for the occurrence of tides
should experience semi-diurnal tides. But in fact,
there are semi-diurnal tides, diurnal tides, and
mixed tides.
9