Beyond the Moon: A Conversational, Common Sense Guide to Understanding the Tides

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Finally, someone has written a comprehensive, easily readable explanation of the tides on earth that is both simple enough for students and solid enough for their professors. Step by step, by analogy and illustration, Beyond the Moon describes how the cyclical motion of the near solar system is impressed upon the earth s oceans, and how the hydraulics over the continental shelf and the geography of the coastline orchestrate this rhythm into the bewildering variety of tide patterns seen around the globe. This volume demystifies the complexity of the tides by systematically examining its many constituents and demonstrates that: Nature is, at once, awesome in complexity and beautiful in simplicity.

Contents: The Tides in History. The Challenge of Understanding the Tides on Earth; The Lunar Orbit; Solar Influences and Solar Lunar Interaction. Gravitation and Tractal Forces; Celestial Harmonics; The Coriolis Force and Oceanic Amphidromes. Coastal Kelvin Waves. Tidal Currents. Sea Level; The Seiche Effect and Basins of Oscillation. Tidal Intermixing; Coastal Geography and Near Shore Topography, Resonant Co-Oscillation and Sustained Forcing; Shallow Estuaries and Tidal Pumping. Tidal Bores; The Computation of the Tide-Tables. Chaos Theory; The Weather and the Tides. Atmospheric Tides; Tidal Influence on Marine Biology. The Tides and Saltwater Fishing. Practical Tide-Table Information for Coastal Boaters; The Constituents of the Tides on Earth. Synopsis of Tidal Influences; Epilogue; Definitions.

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Everything you always thought you knew

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Come on, admit it, you always thought you knew exactly what caused the tides, and why the Bay of Fundy has such a large tidal range! Hah! You only thought you knew. Now, thanks to Dr. Jim McCully's easy to read treatise, you will soon be able to impress all of your friends with great knowledge. Who knows, you might win some trivia contest!

No, seriously, this is a readable and witty explanation of all of the many factors that go into the tidal process. This book patiently explains why tides come and go, why some areas have more than two tides per day, and where the water goes when it goes. Dr. McCully is a knowledgeable researcher and an entertaining writer who makes all the physics and astronomy easy to understand. If you have curiosity about all things natural, if you are a yachtsman or woman, or if you love to fish (as does the author), you will find this book incredibly interesting and helpful.