What are some commonly known facts that are too bizarre for you to believe to be true?

zirzedolta@lemm.ee to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 380 points –

For me it is the fact that our blood contains iron. I earlier used to believe the word stood for some 'organic element' since I couldn't accept we had metal flowing through our supposed carbon-based bodies, till I realized that is where the taste and smell of blood comes from.

447

You are viewing a single comment
View all comments

There’s no such thing as tides. Gravity holds the water as the earth rotates

You mean in the same way that there is no centrifugal force?

Technically right, but doesn't matter if you are in the rotating frame of reference.

But aren't the tides caused by external gravitational forces (the moon?)

They’re saying the same thing, just backwards.

the tides stay in the same place relative to the moon and the earth spins below the tidal bulges (earth spins faster than the moon orbits, is the basic thing)

Tides are a phenomenon where the height of the edge of a body of water shifts relative to the shore. A phenomenon is a thing. Why should explaining its cause in those terms have any effect on that?

I'm confused: you say there's no such thing as tides, and then explain what tides are?

  • Moon pulls the earth.
  • Earth pulls away from moon due to centrifugal force.
  • In the center of the earth it pulls the earth with the exact same force as the centrifugal force.
  • On the side closer to the moon the gravity is more than centrifugal force.
  • So water get's pulled towards the moon or "upwards" from earth's perspective.
  • That's high tide.
  • On the other side centrifugal force is more than gravity.
  • On the other side it's the same thing except gets pulled away from the moon.

So since it's pulled on both sides of the earth water is essentially "lighter" and on the sides it's "heavier" if that makes sense. The water flows from the heavier places to the lighter places like down a small slope due to gravity.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I understand how tides work; the source of my confusion is the person I replied to both stating that they don't exist and explaining how they work, which is mutually contradictory: if they don't exist, how can they work at all?

Tides are the waters going out and coming back. That is how we experience it. We experience it wrong.

That's like saying sunrise doesn't exist because the sun is relatively stationary while the earth revolves on its axis. Sunrise and tides are the names we give to how we experience these things.

Subjective experience cannot be wrong or right; it simply is. Interpretation of that experience can be wrong or right. Either way, the experience still happened.

1 more...