Greg Egan on Nostr: I wonder if he’d find the claim more plausible if it was fleshed out with more ...

I wonder if he’d find the claim more plausible if it was fleshed out with more details, and maybe some analogies / demonstrations.

The real key to tides is not that the Moon exerts a force, per se, but that the force is greater on closer objects. A magnet does the same, though; it shouldn't be hard to convince someone of that by direct experience.

And for added fun, maybe there’s some way to include demonstrations of centrifugal force, which can only balance the gravitational attraction of the Moon on the Earth at one distance. So closer parts of the ocean experience more attraction than centrifugal force, while further parts experience more centrifugal force than gravitational attraction ... stretching the ocean into an egg shape pointing towards the Moon that the Earth rotates within.