New Britain herald., 1928-01-07
.MHY NOON RAISES
 MUCH HIGHER TIDES
Rellly k Considerably Stronger
 Than Sun

moon is the chief factor in creating tides the sun also makes itself felt noticeably in piling up the oceans waters
 But the sun is tremendously greater than the moon-more than ?. million times as large: Why does it play a subordinate part to the lit tie moon in tide production?
 Distance Is Chief Factor
 Distance is one answer. but 1t IS not the whole answer. If the sun were as close to the earth as the moon is it would pull the earth and it's waters some c7 million times as hard as the moon does. But since distance is such a great reducer or crayitation the suns pull on the earth is roughly only lSs times that of the moon.
 But the question persists: Why does the moon produce the hlgher tides when the sun pulls on the earth ls3 times as strongly?
 The total pull of body on an- other. and its tide producing force are not the same. The tide on tne between the pulls on the center o' the earth and on the near ana Tar sides These are the pulls that tend ,o senarate the waters and the ear1n. and therefore to pile the waters up. ,na ;t will be seen on close thought that two weak forces that are COIL sidcrably different, operating one on tho earth and one on the waters can cause a greater separation than TWO very strong forces that are near ly equal.
 Light and Gravitation act some what alike in that each grows weak ,r as tho source of light or graV- fational ou!l is moved farther ana farther away. and that both grow weaker very rapidly in proportion 10 the distance Of the source mu'- ,ipliad by itself. The differences Tn crsvitational pull on which tides de- pand. can be visualized, therefore, hy an experiment with light.
 How Gravity Dimini>hes
 Turn on an electric desk l'Sht or other single bulb and hold near It a sheet of ordinary white paper. Hold the paper with one edge toward inc light and only two or three inches away and turn it very slgnt- jv so that the light shines along the sheet and Eliminates it's whole sur face, There will be noficeaole difference between the brightness Of The light at a point near the close edge and at a point near the lar edge.
 Now hold the paper in the same way at a distance of ten or t"eNe feet from an even brighter light or hold it in the daytime at such dis- tance from a bright window. You know that there is 'still a difference in the degree of illumination Of the TWO sides. but 1t is so very tiny thai you can not detect it.
 Tho two points on which the sun mills to make the near tde-the surface of the ocean nearest the moon and the earth's center-are 4.00A miles apart, and this 4,ooo miles is a tiny fraction of the earth . sun distance. little over four-one- hundred d-thousandths. In the case of tho moon this same 1000 miles IS q relatively large fraction or the earth moon distance-l666 one-hun- s...nd <bossao N dth
 When all the values for distance and mass are inserted in the rathe' formidable equations for the pulis of the moon at the center or the earth and at the surface. and for the pulls of the sun at those two points. it works out that the diner ence in the moons pulls are rouehly two and a quarter times the dllfer- cnce in the suns pulls. The moon therefore. exerts two and Q quarter times the tide producing power eX- erted by the sun.
 What Makes High Tides
 Most of the time the sun and moon are pulling in different dlrec' lions. But twice each month they null in the same line. It Is then that our coasts have their hlghes' t.dcs.
 Theoretically. every star aho planet and satellite in the universe ,aises it's separate tide In oul oceans, Actually. however. ever lupiter, the greatest of our slste' planets, is so far away and relative k so small. that its influence canno' he detected. To all lntents, 1here' fore, it may be said that only the moon and the sun. our nearest ane cur most powerful neighhors II space, have a share in making the