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Who discovered the relationship between the moon and the tides?
Gravity is one major force that creates tides. In 1687, Sir Isaac Newton explained that ocean tides result from the gravitational attraction of the sun and moon on the oceans of the earth (Sumich, J.L., 1996).
Which ancient Greek first correlated the lunar cycle with the tidal cycle?
He noted that tides varied in time and strength in different parts of the world. According to Strabo (1.1. 9), Seleucus was the first to link tides to the lunar attraction, and that the height of the tides depends on the moon’s position relative to the Sun.
How are the moon and tides connected?
High tides and low tides are caused by the moon. The moon’s gravitational pull generates something called the tidal force. The tidal force causes Earth—and its water—to bulge out on the side closest to the moon and the side farthest from the moon. When you’re in one of the bulges, you experience a high tide.
What did ancient people think of the tides?
Since the Mediterranean Sea is very little affected by the tides, the ancient Greeks and Romans paid very little attention to it. Plutarch and Aristotle recognized the Moon as the cause of the tides, without understand gravitational pull. Pliny believed that the Moon had an attraction which caused the tides.
Who was the first person to describe tides scientifically?
Isaac Newton (1642 -1727) was the first person to explain tides scientifically.
How did ancient Greeks explain tides?
(Tides were essentially absent from the Mediterranean Sea, which was more familiar to the Greeks.) Pytheas proposed an explanation for tidal action: the pull of the Moon on the Earth’s oceans, he said, caused the tides.
Did you know facts about the Moon?
Back to the Moon
- The Moon’s surface is actually dark.
- The Sun and the Moon are not the same size.
- The Moon is drifting away from the Earth.
- The Moon was made when a rock smashed into Earth.
- The Moon makes the Earth move as well as the tides.
- The Moon has quakes too.
- There is water on the Moon!
What do you think is the biological role of the moonlight in the sea?
Moonlight may enable predation of zooplankton by carnivorous zooplankters, fish, and birds now known to feed during the polar night [4]. We infer that moonlight plays a central role in structuring predator- prey interactions and possibly carbon sequestration during the Arctic winter.