Re: [Paddlewise] Rogue Waves

On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 05:56:27PM -0700, Dave Kruger wrote:
> As to "rogue waves," there was a good article on them in one of the popular
>  "science" periodicals recently.  Wikipedia has a good summary of what is
> know of these, and describes the likely sources:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_wave  I suspect the "non linear"
> hypothesis is the culprit.

It certainly seems to fit the observed facts quite well.  And nonlinear
stochastic phenomena are often described with terms like "rogue" or
"freak" that give some sense of their unexpected nature and the
(apparently) sudden way they make their presence known.  I think these
anthropomorophic labels are used because most of the physical phenomena
we deal with in our lives are approximately linear, and those that
deviate sharply from this are surprising and frightening to us.

We've evolved brains that are good at dealing with most of the things
that we encounter most of the time.  There's little value in evolving
a brain that can comprehend something like a rogue wave, because until
very very recently just about everyone who ever saw one was dead shortly
thereafter.  Only now do we have the technology to observe one from a
distance or perhaps survive a direct encounter with one -- but it's far
ahead of our primitive simian minds.  So on the surface we may be
thinking "Hmm...51 meters, that's odd..." but deep inside somewhere
there's a part of us screaming "AIIIIIIYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE".

---Rsk
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