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How did Newton use gravity to explain ocean tides?

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gravitational lens — gravity A galactic cluster, about five billion light-years away, produces a tremendous gravitational field that “bends” light around it. This lens produces multiple copies of a blue galaxy about twice as distant. Four images are visible in a circle surrounding the lens; a fifth is visible near the center of the picture, which was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Isaac Newton demonstrated that ocean tides are a direct consequence of his law of universal gravitation, which he published in the Principia in 1687.123

Newton showed that the gravitational pull exerted by the Moon—and to a lesser extent the Sun—acts upon Earth to create these phenomena. While the specific, complex details of tidal behavior were not fully understood until more recently, Newton established that the tide-producing action arises from variations in the gravitational field across Earth's surface. This gravitational force causes water to accumulate on the side of Earth facing the Moon and on the opposite side, while depleting in other regions.145

By applying his laws of motion and gravity, Newton successfully integrated tides into his broader physical framework, confirming that the same force governing the orbits of planets and comets also drives the periodic rise and fall of the sea.23