Abstract: The majority of my scientific career has focused on the study of
stellar oscillations — standing and traveling waves that cause
periodic perturbations to the internal structure and surface
properties of stars. In the past few years, however, I’ve become
fascinated by the phenomenon of stellar tides. These arise in binary
systems and star-planet systems, much as tides arise in Earth’s
oceans, due to the differential gravitational pull of the companion
body.

In this talk I will share a light-hearted “travelogue” of what I’ve
learned during my sojourn in the strange and far-off land of stellar
tides. It transpires that the land is not nearly as foreign as I had
imagined; once I figured out how to translate between the “tides” and
“oscillation” languages, I discovered that the fundamental physics at
play in each is virtually identical