Tidal Distortion
Purpose
Demonstrates how the Moon's differential gravitational pull creates two tidal bulges on opposite sides of Earth. Students see that tides arise from gravitational gradients, not uniform attraction. Extend the discussion to extreme tidal disruption near black holes.
Figure 1:
The elastic loop stretches the basketball along the tidal axis, creating two bulges that represent the high tides on opposite sides of Earth. The symmetric distortion illustrates that tidal forces arise from gravitational gradients rather than simple attraction.