the lifecycleof ocean waves- bedford public schools（海浪中,贝德福德公立学校）.docVIP

The Lifecycle of Ocean Waves from The Book of Waves: Form and Beauty on the Ocean, by Drew Kampion, used with permission. Under heaven nothing is more soft and yielding than water. Yet for attacking the solid and strong, nothing is better; It has no equal. - Lao Tsu We are surrounded and influenced everywhere by waves. From the radiations of light and color, to the sounds that vibrate through our atmosphere, to the cycles of the tides, and of night and day, and of the movements of our lives — it seems that everything comes in waves, or as cycles moving within waves. Clearly, wave action is the fundamental way in which energy is transported and transmitted in this world. Waves are an expression of the universal rhythm that orchestrates and propels all creation and the development of life on earth. Perhaps this is why the contemplation and study of ocean waves is so attractive, so compelling. Ocean waves are among the earths most complicated natural phenomena, yet when we picture waves in the abstract, our minds might conjure an image of the perfect concentric ripples that echo the point of entry of a pebble into smooth pond waters. Those waves—the ideal waves of our conceptual imagination—are elongated sinusoidal oscillations [Fig. 1], and although they do exist in relatively pure form in controlled conditions, they are not likely to be found in the more complex ocean environment [Fig 2]. This is why waves are usually studied in laboratory tanks, where a single train of waves can be generated and where the mechanics of wave motion can be isolated and simplified. Figure 1 - An ideal wave: This familiar sinusoidal pattern is echoes throughout nature, although this simplified model exists only in theory or in the laboratory. Ocean waves and laboratory waves share the same basic features: a crest (the highest point of the wave), a trough (the lowest point), a height (the vertical distance from the trough to the crest), a wave length (the horizontal distance be