Bruce Parker's The Power Of The Sea

The Power of the Sea by Bruce Parker

Throughout the novel, Parker brings in historic examples to show readers specific events, then discusses the scientific reasoning behind it. This method allows him to move out to discussing politics and religion at times because, in many cases, unexplained phenomena would be called an act of God. The first described topic is tide tables because of their importance to all civilizations living near a sea, with the exception of the Mediterranean Sea because it had practically no tide. Galileo, Newton, Marquis de LaPlace, Edmund Halley, and many other scientists determined tides were based on both the sun and moon, and the reason the some tides are higher than other tides in the same spot. Much of the math Laplace used in tide prediction is now being used in predicting weather, atmosphere, El Nino, and astronomical events.

Later, self registering tide

The tragedy increases awareness, and people start asking questions like why it occurred and how can they prevent it from happening again. For example, after the Lisbon earthquake and tsunami during All Saints Day, a huge religious holiday, Reverend John Mitchell wanted to learn about the science behind what had occurred, advancing understanding of long waves, seismic activity, and tsunami epicenters. Later, after being hit with tsunamis between 1955 and 1960, Russia and Japan wanted to get involved with the United States for an international effort in better predicting tsunamis. In general, it appears that governments do not care about getting involved in scientific advancements unless they realize that they can benefit from it. This is logical, because every country has limited resources and must choose where they want to spend money that will not cause public outrage and provide some payback. But, this can also result in countries not being prepared for a natural disaster because they could not predict that it would happen in their