Planetary scientist and Hall of Famer guest Dr. Stuart Robbins joins Pat and Cristina to respond to a listener who asks why the Earth experiences two high tides instead of just one. Adam brings us a PSA on the dangers of double male end adapters, known as ‘suicide cords’. Dr. Stu rounds out the show with a follow-up to Adam’s ‘Life On Venus?’ segment from September by addressing the accuracy of a recent study published by astronomers claiming phosphine – a potential marker of life – was discovered in Venus’ atmosphere.
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Why 2 High Tides?
Dangers Of Double Male End Plugs
Is There An Adapter Out There With Two Male Ends For My Christmas Lights? – West Lake Hardware
Hi.
I am a long time listener and a fan of the show, as well as an university physics drop-out. So when you featured Stuart Robbins commenting on freefall in orbit as well as tides I did pay more attention than usual.
I noticed that Stuart did explain why there are the two high tides and not only one by using a general model of equal and opposite tidal forces. Unfortunately this by itself does not explain tides in a correct way.
A short explanation of how ocean tides _actually_ work would require about two minutes, but a good one will probably take nine minutes if you speak very fast. Fortunately there has been such an explanation available on YouTube since 5 august 2015: “What Physics Teachers Get Wrong About Tides!” by the Space Time show from PBS Digital Studios. The URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwChk4S99i4 should take you right there. Enjoy the learning! I know I did. : )
(Using only the explanation used by Stuart one would expect there to be tides not only in the ocean but in lakes, pools, puddles and cups of coffe as well. But there are no such significant phenomena. It is true that water being more easily displaced plays a big part in the ocean tides being as large as they are, but Stuart skipping over the whole mechanics of ocean tides was quite unsatisfactory as well as surprising. I would love the TRC to revisit the topic of ocean tides and explain them in the correct way, since the incorrect explanation lends itself to being used as foundation for the belief that the moon has a substantial direct gravitational effect on us humans and therefore a lot of moon-woo should be taken seriosly. It really shouldn’t, should it?)
[Any spelling mistakes or gramatical errors are caused by me beeing swedish and having a 4 month old daughter.]