A formula for the tidal dissipation rate in a spherical body is derived from first principles, to correct some mathematical inaccuracies found in the literature. The development is combined with the Darwin-Kaula formalism for tides. Our intermediate results are compared with those by Zschau (1978) and Platzman (1984). When restricted to the special case of an incompressible spherical planet spinning synchronously without libration, our final formula can be compared with the commonly used expression from Peale & Cassen (1978, Eqn. 31). The two turn out to differ. In our expression, the contributions from all Fourier modes are positive-definite, this not being the case of the formula from Ibid. (The presence of negative terms in their formula was noticed by Makarov 2013.) Examples of application of our expression for the tidal damping rate are provided in the work by Makarov and Efroimsky (2014).
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