Posted: Jan 02, 2015 5:44 pm
by DavidMcC
Veida wrote:
DavidMcC wrote:
Thommo wrote:Image

My point, exactly, but you have forgotten the implications for contact force (your weight). Thus, your account is inadequate.

I'm curious. If this picture is somehow related to your point - how do you explain the forces that increase the weight at the points midway between those closest to and farthest from the satellite? (Where the arrows are directed towards the center?)

Actually, I was about to correct myself. the diagram is over-simplstic, because it fails to recognise that the main cause of the bulge is the earth's spin. The moon only tips the plane of that spin. It does not create a separate bulge of its own.