How do you do an experiment showing how the moon creates tides?

Answer 1

I don't think you can do an experiment in the usual sense of the word. For example, you can't set up a "control" earth, or an earth without a moon so you can compare it with the earth that has one. But you can do a descriptive study that presents all the facts. For example, you can talk about the gravitational attraction between the earth and moon, and about the orbiting of the moon around the earth. You could look at the overwhelming amount of data supporting the moon-tide link, or see if anyone has ever proposed another explanation for tides. What you end up with, essentially, is a perfect correlation between tidal events and the movement of the moon. Usually, correlations aren't considered a strong enough statistic to demonstrate cause and effect, but in this case anyone who denies it would appear to be a fool. Maybe you could explore when and how correlations like this really do provide a strong argument for cause and effect. That might be an interesting thing to explore! Just had another thought. Along with the above, you could (if you don't find this too silly) do a couple of demonstrations. You could take a piece of cloth completely soaked in water and demonstrate that if you suspend it and leave it untouched, the top of the cloth will dry before the bottom does. You start by assuming the gravitational attraction between the wet cloth and the earth, but you demonstrate that the water will act independently, and not stay stuck where it is on the cloth. Or maybe you could have fun setting up a centrifugal device that spins two equally weighted soaked cloths outward to demonstrate the same thing, and this would help you explain how there are high tides on the earth's side opposite the moon, if you want to get into it that deeply. It will take some reading and thinking to figure this one out.