3 ms·

> "The astonishing thing is, you'd think it would bump into a million other waves that are coming at it from every direction; that it would pass through other s

> "The astonishing thing is, you'd think it would bump into a million other waves that are coming at it from every direction; that it would pass through other storms, spreading, bumping, traveling, that all this travel would sap its momentum. But, as Walter Munk would discover, that's not what happens." Kinda weird that the article spends so long explaining high-school physics, and in such astonished terms. Zomg! Waves pass through each other! The Superposition principle! If they think that's cool, they should see some of the stuff you can do with light and sound.

javert 12y ago
Many Americans don't take physics in high school. I didn't and I'm a computer science phd student (so it's not that I wasn't intelligent enough to take it). I was surprised to learn that waves coming from different directions just pass through each other. I did take physics in college, from a guy who could barely speak English.
- scoot 12y ago
  If this is true (and I have no evidence one way or the other), then surely this is the bigger surprise (coming from an environment where science is mandatory to middle-school equivalent, and at least one science subject almost un avoidable before university level.
  - learc83 12y ago
    >coming from an environment where science is mandatory to middle-school equivalent, and at least one science subject almost un avoidable before university level. School districts are ran locally and the curriculum is usually set at the state level, so there are differences, but 3 years of science is mandatory in middle school in every state I've ever heard of. In addition, almost all American high schools require 3 or 4 years of science for university bound students (maybe a bit less for non college bound students but usually not less than 3 years). At my high school, in a not very big town in Georgia, everyone took physical science, chemistry, and biology. However, you had choices for senior year--physics, AP physics, AP chemistry, ecology or anatomy (you could take more than one if you wanted).
pholloway 12y ago
If you consider them travelling self-sustaining standing wave packets is it still totally confusing? There are many examples of self-contained resonating bodies travelling through medium without interfering with each other in physics. Usually only in electromagnetic radiation though. Harmonics, induction, and current aren't excluded from sound and water waves. Not sure why we shouldn't see other analogies to draw from micro and quantum principles.
jjoonathan 12y ago
> Kinda weird that the article spends so long explaining high-school physics Physics curricula on waves work like this: in high school or early college you learn about noninteracting waves because they're simple. Then, once you can handle that, you're introduced to waves that do interact with their surroundings. Electrons scatter off of imperfections in conductors, emit/absorb photons, etc. Sound, light, and current/voltage waves scatter off of impedance changes and nonlinearities of certain types. The general intuition is that disruptions in the wave medium lead to nontrivial behavior. Depth, temperature, wind, and currents all cause behavior that isn't modeled by high-school physics. The fact that these higher-order terms ultimately don't matter much in this specific scenario is surprising in light of the fact that the medium through which ocean waves propagate has an abundance of disruptions that could plausibly make the behavior more complex. The fact that someone unaware of the higher-order terms could conceivably blunder accidentally into the correct explanation isn't impressive or enlightening. The analysis which determines that the simple model actually works well in this scenario is both.

javert 12y ago

Many Americans don't take physics in high school. I didn't and I'm a computer science phd student (so it's not that I wasn't intelligent enough to take it). I was surprised to learn that waves coming from different directions just pass through each other. I did take physics in college, from a guy who could barely speak English.

scoot 12y ago
If this is true (and I have no evidence one way or the other), then surely this is the bigger surprise (coming from an environment where science is mandatory to middle-school equivalent, and at least one science subject almost un avoidable before university level.
- learc83 12y ago
  >coming from an environment where science is mandatory to middle-school equivalent, and at least one science subject almost un avoidable before university level. School districts are ran locally and the curriculum is usually set at the state level, so there are differences, but 3 years of science is mandatory in middle school in every state I've ever heard of. In addition, almost all American high schools require 3 or 4 years of science for university bound students (maybe a bit less for non college bound students but usually not less than 3 years). At my high school, in a not very big town in Georgia, everyone took physical science, chemistry, and biology. However, you had choices for senior year--physics, AP physics, AP chemistry, ecology or anatomy (you could take more than one if you wanted).

pholloway 12y ago

If you consider them travelling self-sustaining standing wave packets is it still totally confusing? There are many examples of self-contained resonating bodies travelling through medium without interfering with each other in physics. Usually only in electromagnetic radiation though. Harmonics, induction, and current aren't excluded from sound and water waves. Not sure why we shouldn't see other analogies to draw from micro and quantum principles.

jjoonathan 12y ago

> Kinda weird that the article spends so long explaining high-school physics Physics curricula on waves work like this: in high school or early college you learn about noninteracting waves because they're simple. Then, once you can handle that, you're introduced to waves that do interact with their surroundings. Electrons scatter off of imperfections in conductors, emit/absorb photons, etc. Sound, light, and current/voltage waves scatter off of impedance changes and nonlinearities of certain types. The general intuition is that disruptions in the wave medium lead to nontrivial behavior. Depth, temperature, wind, and currents all cause behavior that isn't modeled by high-school physics. The fact that these higher-order terms ultimately don't matter much in this specific scenario is surprising in light of the fact that the medium through which ocean waves propagate has an abundance of disruptions that could plausibly make the behavior more complex. The fact that someone unaware of the higher-order terms could conceivably blunder accidentally into the correct explanation isn't impressive or enlightening. The analysis which determines that the simple model actually works well in this scenario is both.