How is it that the moon can affect the 352 quintillion gallons of water in the ocean, but not affect us?

Question

The moon depending on where it is at your time of day can affect whether or not there’s high or low tides. Basically moving all of the water in the ocean, at least that’s how I think. But how come it doesn’t make us feel lighter or heavier throughout the day? Or just seem to affect anything else

In: 407

Answer 1

OK.

So instead of thinking the whole ocean is being pulled by the moon, Think of it instead that there is always a bulge of water facing the moon, There is also another bulge of water facing the opposite side of the earth too.

We will call these bulges ‘high tide’.

The earth is actually spinning *through* these bulges of water and as we reach a bulge the ocean gets this extra bulge of water and we experience a high tide.

Once we spin out of the bulge past the moon the water drops again and we experience no bulge which is ‘low tide’.

The rhythm of us passing through these bulges of water each day is the tides.

The bulge is always there being pulled up towards the moon, We just slide through it.

You also get extra bulges from the sun, but these are usually smaller.

[Here is a helpful NASA visualisation](https://moon.nasa.gov/resources/444/tides/#:~:text=The%20Moon%20and%20Earth%20exert,are%20where%20low%20tides%20occur.)