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The Movement of Waves

© Nathan Myers

A wave, in its' strictest scientific definition, is a disturbance that travels through a medium from one location to another. They exist in a vast variety of mediums, from the sounds and light to football stadium cheers and media buzz. Waves are said to be an "energy transport phenomenon." As a disturbance moves through a medium from one particle to its adjacent particle, energy is being transported from one end of the medium to the other. A wave transports its energy without transporting matter. Waves are seen to move through the ocean; yet the water always returns to its rest position. Energy is transported through the medium, yet the water molecules are not moving in the direction of the energy. Proof of this is the fact that there is still water in the middle of the ocean.

Waves in the ocean are caused by wind. The wind is caused by storms which develop as a result of seasonal temperature changes at the more extreme ends of the earth: the equator and near both poles. These seasonal temperature changes are a result of the earth's elliptical orbit around the sun. The wind from the storm laps the surface of the ocean consistently in a continuous pattern, generating a continuous disturbance. This disturbance travels through the medium of the water until it strikes a different medium: land. Which is where we come in. Surfing, in a way, is a study of the way in which these disturbances strike a new medium, the shore. As waves reach shallower depths of water, friction causes them to slow down, but causes them to rise up higher out of the water. When a waves is forced to stand up too high, it falls over itself, which surfers know as "breaking."

Open ocean waves travel in sets. This is because the disturbance traveling through the medium of the water becomes a medium itself, through which another wave of energy is moving through in ever larger and more invisible wavelengths. Sets within the sets. Much in the same way a pack of bicyclists will draft off the lead rider, the wave travelling behind the lead wave has a slightly easier path through the medium. It moves faster and thus over takes the lead wave, becoming the lead wave itself while the previous lead wave drops to the back of the line. A continuous cycle of develops of the waves rotating the lead position within the ranks of each set. In this way nature conserves the energy for the disturbance to travel great distances across through the medium of the ocean.

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