Unit 9

Waves are mediums disturbed by vibration, they basically look like squiggly lines. Waves can come in many forms, like the ocean waves, radio frequency waves, or spring waves. They are found everywhere in so many situations. Waves can go at different velocities and can have different lengths. The wave length and velocity have a directly proportional relationship so that with an increase in one, the other also increases. This can occur with ocean waves. Living here in Hawaii, we are a little island surrounded by miles and miles of water so most of us know a lot about it. With little swells coming through the ocean, maybe from a small storm, those swells can come to us a day later. With big waves, like the tsunami one that hit Japan, it can take only a matter of hours for the huge wave to make it's way out over here because with it's bigger wave length, the velocity of the wave is very, very fast, sometimes hundreds of miles per hour. The bigger the wave, usually the more dangerous. Like when pro surfers go out on waves that are 30 feet high, it's super dangerous, life threatening because with all the water moving so fast, the wave can drown a man by pulling them under at a very high speed. The reason why waves break at the shore and not really in the middle of the ocean is because the rocks and sand at the bottom affect how they break. If you were out in the ocean and two swells / waves were coming towards each other, both of the waves once hitting would make a wave the size of both put together because both of their energy is put into that one part of the water. It's important knowing these facts about waves, especially living in Hawaii.