HOW TIDES ARE CAUSED AND HOW THEIR ACTION AFFECTS THE EARTH AND MOON
â
In days gone by, textbooks would sometimes attempt to explain how the Earth's tides are formed. They usually explained how the tidal bulge nearest the Earth was formed and would then fudge an explanation of how the bulge on the other side of the Earth was formed, and hence why we have two high tides per day, not just one. This was fairly unsatisfactory and so it's now quite a rare sight, which is a shame when it's not that tricky to understand and relates to something many pupils will have experienced at the coast.
Also, once you look into it, there are some fascinating feedback effects between the Earth, the Moon and the tidal bulge. This presentation takes you through it all - there are some animation effects to help the explanations which should work smoothly on a slideshow: