I would not have discovered the truth.
The celebrated German astronomer Johannes Kepler ‘the father of modern astronomy’ (who devised the true orbit of Mars using Tycho Brahe’s observations), studied theology and believed that the earth was a real living animal with men and animals feeding on it. He thought the tides were due the planet breathing. The tides have also been attributed to the water. of the ocean running in and out through some great hole at each pole communicating by a subterranean passage through the earth.
Descartes suggested that the tides were due to the influence of the moon pushing down on the sea. Newton explained that the moon acted on the oceans by gravitational attraction, each succeeding tide later by three quarters of an hour as the moon rise and sets. The tides are greater at new and full moon. If we had no moon, the sun’s gravity would produce two tides every day, which would take place at the same time every day, and be much smaller.
