Python physics explained: tides and their mathematical model. Learn how tidal forces work and how to model them step-by-step in Python using clean math, simple assumptions, and clear visual intuition.

At the heart of every resonator — be it a cello, a gravitational wave detector, or the antenna in your cell phone — there is a beautiful bit of mathematics that has been heretofore unacknowledged.

After breakfast one morning in August, the mathematician Terence Tao opened an email from three physicists he didn’t know. The trio explained that they’d stumbled across a simple formula that, if true ...