Scott Kellog:
> [describes big wave off bow (or stern) of a ship]
> Now, as you may notice, the water behind a ship, inside the barriers of
> the wake, is much less turbulent than either the wake itself or the water
> around it.
And Mark Cook:
:Boy, ain't *that* the truth. This is the reason I love to follow the
:Coast Guard cutter ....
I thought you were still mad at the coasties for that one night back in
'78... :=)
Ahem.
Wellllll, actually there is a difference between this wave and a shock
wave generated by an aircraft. The angle between the wave fronts in water
will *always* be 48 degrees. No matter how fast the boat moves. Watch
sometime. The angle between the wave fronts for a plane in the air
changes. It gets smaller (the wave fronts move together) as the plane
flies faster.
Yes, the plane flies in the relatively undisturbed air behind the shock
front, but that's because if the control surfaces entered it, the plane
would be uncontrollable.
I think the reason this happens on the water is surface tension. A
classic example of second order effects have a major impact on first
order effects.
:> God! It's hard to describe without diagrams!
:I dunno. I thought you did a pretty darn good job! :^)
Seems like "God!" ought to be pretty hard to describe WITH diagrams. :=)
- --
Richard Johnson [email removed]
Qui custodii ipsos custodes?