On Thu, Dec 30, 2004 at 08:45:34AM -0800, Steve Holtzman wrote: > The energy involved together with the physical volume of water, appears to > be what causes all of the damage. Exactly. The URL you referenced has a good explanation of this: it's all about the energy. Sure, (as that site says) some of it will be reflected back out as the wave reaches shore, and some will be dissipated in turbulence, but most of it will be carried onshore in the wave(s). It's got to go somewhere. Conservation of energy says it can't just vanish. And if you do just a back-of-the-envelope-grade calculation of the amount of energy involved, you'll need a lot of zeros. (Which is why the goober on CNN yesterday blabbing about "defending" from tsunamis needs a course in basic physics. You don't "defend" from things like this. The best you can hope for is enough warning to get far, far away.) ---Rsk *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Dec 30 2004 - 10:54:09 PST
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