Free Surface - Waves

Waves

Further information: Ocean surface wave and Airy wave theory

If the free surface of a liquid is disturbed, waves are produced on the surface. These waves are not elastic waves due to any elastic force; they are gravity waves caused by the force of gravity tending to bring the surface of the disturbed liquid back to its horizontal level. Momentum causes the wave to overshoot, thus oscillating and spreading the disturbance to the neighboring portions of the surface. The velocity of the surface waves varies as the square root of the wavelength if the liquid is deep; therefore long waves on the sea go faster than short ones. Very minute waves or ripples are not due to gravity but to capillary action, and have properties different from those of the longer ocean surface waves, because the surface is increased in area by the ripples and the capillary forces are in this case large compared with the gravitational forces. Capillary ripples are damped both by sub-surface viscosity and by surface rheology

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Famous quotes containing the word waves:

    “Flow, flow the waves hated,
    Accursed, adored,
    The waves of mutation:
    No anchorage is.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “The seashore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point from which to contemplate this world. It is even a trivial place. The waves forever rolling to the land are too far-traveled and untamable to be familiar. Creeping along the endless beach amid the sun-squall and the foam, it occurs to us that we, too, are the product of sea-slime.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “Yet
    I trust the sanity of my vessel; and
    if it sinks, it may well be in answer
    to the reasoning of the eternal voices,
    the waves which have kept me from reaching you.”
    —Frank O’Hara (1926–1966)