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Joe Shultz had written-

=====================
John, you can think of a wave as a rolling iceberg.  The wave rolls and
rolls as it travels and, just like an iceberg, at least half of the wave is
underwater. ..

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and I replied-

Anyone who pictures a wave in that way will misunderstand wave motion
completely. Although the profile of a wave travels, the water, from which it
is constructed, does not. It goes round and round in a circle (or an
ellipse) without travelling.

=======================
and now Frank Reed presumes to chide me-

"Now honestly, did you really think that you were correcting something here,
George? I don't think there's anyone who's been around the ocean for more
than a few weeks who has not learned this fact about ocean waves. I first
learned it when I was perhaps six years old. It is in every sense of the
phrase "common knowledge". Certainly --and beyond any faint shadow of
doubt-- Joe Schultz knows it. I didn't find his "iceberg" analogy all that
useful, but it wasn't literally wrong. "

=======================

I stand by those words. The homespun analogy, with a "rolling iceberg",
which "travels" was completely bogus, as Frank would have known (from the
age of six, he tells us), as Joe Schultz most probably knew, and as many
list-members would realise; that the water in a wave does not travel. That
is, indeed, common knowledge. However, I don't expect every list-member to
be equally familiar with the principles of wave motion.

I can't know what's in Joe Schultz's mind, other than by the words he posts.
I was not expecting to educate him about wave motion; whether or not he
understands it already. I was warning list members that if they pictured a
wave in that way, they would misunderstand wave motion completely. Which
they would. Nor (to quote Frank's words), did I claim that the analogy was
literally wrong. Though it is.

I would like to read a defence of Joe's rolling iceberg, which travels, as a
representation of wave motion, but neither Joe nor Frank shows any sign, as
yet, of providing one.

George.

contact George Huxtable, at  george@hux.me.uk
or at +44 1865 820222 (from UK, 01865 820222)
or at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK.

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