system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: when the moon comes up, it's gravity is strong enough to rise the tide. How come small particles don't go flying as well?
gpt
Probably the biggest thing to understand is that the moon's gravity doesn't create the tides "all in one go".  As the Earth rotates, the pull of the moon has a constant very small effect that over time builds up a sort of standing-wave front that we call the tides.  It's the cumulative effect that causes the tides, not the 'instantaneous' gravitational pull.