text: Simon Stevin in his 1608 De spiegheling der Ebbenvloet (The Theory of Ebb and Flood) dismisses a large number of misconceptions that still existed about ebb and flood. Stevin pleads for the idea that the attraction of the Moon was responsible for the tides and writes in clear terms about ebb, flood, spring tide and neap tide, stressing that further research needed to be made. In 1609, Johannes Kepler correctly suggested that the gravitation of the Moon causes the tides, which he compared to magnetic attraction basing his argument upon ancient observations and correlations.
  In 1616, Galileo Galilei wrote Discourse on the Tides. He strongly and mockingly rejects the lunar theory of the tides, and tries to explain the tides as the result of the Earths rotation and revolution around the Sun, believing that the oceans moved like water in a large basin: as the basin moves, so does the water. Therefore, as the Earth revolves, the force of the Earths rotation causes the oceans to "alternately accelerate and retardate". His view on the oscillation and "alternately accelerated and retardated" motion of the Earths rotation is a "dynamic process" that deviated from the previous dogma, which proposed "a process of expansion and contraction of seawater." However, Galileos theory was erroneous.  In subsequent centuries, further analysis led to the current tidal physics. Galileo tried to use his tidal theory to prove the movement of the Earth around the Sun. Galileo theorized that because of the Earths motion, borders of the oceans like the Atlantic and Pacific would show one high tide and one low tide per day. The Mediterranean Sea had two high tides and low tides, though Galileo argued that this was a product of secondary effects and that his theory would hold in the Atlantic. However, Galileos contemporaries noted that the Atlantic also had two high tides and low tides per day, which led to Galileo omitting this claim from his 1632 Dialogue.
  René Descartes theorized that the tides (alongside the movement of planets, etc.) were caused by aetheric vortices, without reference to Kepler's theories of gravitation by mutual attraction; this was extremely influential, with numerous followers of Descartes expounding on this theory throughout the 17th century, particularly in France. However, Descartes and his followers acknowledged the influence of the Moon, speculating that pressure waves from the Moon via the aether were responsible for the correlation.
  Newton, in the Principia, provides a correct explanation for the tidal force, which can be used to explain tides on a planet covered by a uniform ocean but which takes no account of the distribution of the continents or ocean bathymetry.