Gerhard Fiedler wrote:
> Yes, I agreed already to the source of this energy being the kinetic
> energy of the rotation. The question is really whether the energy would
> be conserved as kinetic energy if the float wasn't there, or if it
> would get lost (as kinetic energy) anyway -- maybe at the coast line.
> It seems to me that there's quite a bit of kinetic energy that gets
> lost (as kinetic energy) at the coast lines...

Some of it of course does get dissipated, but I think a large chunk doesn't.
However I can't think of how to substantiate this one way or another.

In some places it is more clear than others.  The Bay of Fundy produces
large tides in part because it is about the right size for resonance at the
tide frequency.  The other contributing factor is that it gets narrower at
the end so that the height difference gets amplified as the resonant slosh
hits the tip.  The fact that resonance occurs at all proves that a decent
fraction of the energy is not dissipated each cycle.  Resonance requires
energy stored between cycles.

Clearly much of the slosh in the relatively small and narrow Bay of Fundy
does still allows significant parts of the tidal energy not to be dissipated
each cycle.  One can only imagine that the much smaller tidal slosh accross
large unobstructed oceans dissipates a lot less of its energy per cycle.


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