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My name is David Malone.

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This is Tynemouth, where I was born.

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And the place where my parents
came back to when they retired.

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What I really remember
is standing down there.

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Where the guns...?

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No, where the gate is, and
watching the waves go by. Oh, right.

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I used to take you there. Did you?

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I used to go down to this particular
sea wall when I was a little lad.

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The angle of the wall to
the curl of the wave meant that

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it always trap air inside the wave,
compressing the air,

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which would then escape and
make this wonderful roaring sound

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as the wave came down
the length of the wall towards you.

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I make science documentaries

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and I believe a deeper
understanding of waves

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can explain our endless fascination
with them.

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When we started out,
this film was supposed to be

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about the science of ocean waves.

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But it can't be about just that,
because waves also give us a window

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into how the world actually works,

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into the nature of reality.

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Because waves have a life cycle,

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so they're quite unlike the things
that we think of as objects,

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like pebbles or cliffs.

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They have a birth and a death.

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They're a process, and that
makes them much more like us.

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There's a view that science
is merely about totting up numbers

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to make them come out right,

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while how we make sense of the world
should be left to the poets.

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I don't think that's right.

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Waves in particular
is one of those subjects

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where the science itself
is full of meaning.

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Why are waves
so fascinating to watch?

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Why is it that human beings will sit

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and be hypnotised by waves
for hours?

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We don't normally sit
and watch chairs and tables.

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All my life I've gazed at
the sea breaking on the shore

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and wondered what
makes each wave different

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and why they crash so relentlessly.

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I was surprised to discover
that the scientific study of waves

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began only relatively recently,

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and it wasn't idle wave-watching.

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It was truly a matter
of life and death.

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Autumn 1942.

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During the Second World War,
the first major amphibious landings

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were planned to attack
German forces in North Africa.

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The Allies knew that the landing
craft carrying troops ashore

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could capsize in waves
over six feet high.

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It was essential, therefore,
to predict the height of the waves.

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Scientists found they could
calculate wave heights accurately

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by measuring the duration
and strength of the wind.

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The ability to predict waves

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led to the success
of the landings in North Africa...

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..and later on, D-day in France.

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To understand these wartime
discoveries about waves,

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'it's easier to start not at sea,
but at Flatford Mill in Suffolk,

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'made famous
in the painting by Constable.'

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Well, we've got a virgin canvas here,
ready for waves to start.

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'Gavin Pretor-Pinney
is an author who studies waves.'

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The whole idea of the birth of
a wave is a rather intriguing notion.

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It's got to start somewhere.
I hadn't thought about it before.

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I suppose what I'm interested in is
how does a wave get born?

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It does seem a bit like
getting something from nothing.

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Cos there you've just got water,

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and somehow you've got
to get a wave out of it.

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Well, now the air is quite still.

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But in the case of winds out at sea,

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there is the wind.

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That is the crucial factor.

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That's where the energy comes from.

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How? Well, I'll show you.

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I'll get down and I'll be the wind.

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OK.

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On this little flat bit here...

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Right. It really
very easily happens.

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It doesn't require a lot, does it?

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And these tiny little ripples that I
produce by blowing over the surface,

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they're known as capillary waves,
these tiny embryonic waves.

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The critical factor is
the surface tension of the water.

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When the water is distorted
into a slight crest,

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the elastic nature of the surface
wants to flatten it down.

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In terms of it being a wave
that propagates over the surface,

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this returning, this restoring force,
is critical.

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Is that what helps to push it away?

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It helps to make
the wave move because,

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where it's lifted up,
the restoring force brings it down,

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and then it overshoots...
Pushing the wave that way.

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It continues down below and as
the parts of the water go like this,

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the actual shape of the wave
progresses across the surface.

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In the mill pond,
as the wind creates a wave,

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the surface tension
tries to flatten the water.

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The result is a regular undulation
in the surface.

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Naturally, the forces
that create waves out at sea

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are very much greater.

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The sun provides the earth
with energy in the form of heat.

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This warms the atmosphere
and creates the wind.

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It is the energy of the wind
that in turn creates the waves.

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Energy is the invisible force
that drives the universe.

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Energy can never be destroyed.

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It can only change from
one form to another.

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Even after the wind dies away,
the energy lives on in the waves.

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These ocean waves are
far larger than capillary waves,

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and forces other than
surface tension take over,

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pushing the water down.

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Better get out the way. Yeah.

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'We can see this if we increase
the wind at the mill pond.'

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Right, let's turn it round here.

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That's good. Shall we start her up?

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We shall.

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LOUD WHIRRING

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WHIRRING STOPS

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So that, you could see...

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God, I can hardly hear now!

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You can see that they soon
develop into larger than these

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2cm-high capillary waves.

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And they're continuing much more.

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Can you see the bunch
of them coming back?

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Capillary waves themselves, when
they're tiny, they don't go very far,

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but once they get larger
than a couple of centimetres,

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they're known as gravity waves.

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Why are they called gravity waves?
Why the change of name?

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There are two forces that try
to return the water to the level.

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One is the surface tension
that we were talking about

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with the capillary waves.
The other is the force of gravity.

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When the waves are greater
than a couple of centimetres,

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that becomes the dominant force.

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With these larger waves, gravity
works just like surface tension.

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It pushes the wave down, overshoots,
and the wave is propelled forward.

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That's beautiful! Look at that!
That is beautiful.

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A very graceful movement, isn't it?

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It is lovely.

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The thing I was
quite sceptical about...

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I mean, I knew it intellectually,
but there's something about someone

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getting down on their knees
and blowing onto the surface

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of the water making a few ripples,

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and then saying, "And that's
how you start a Pacific wave."

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It doesn't quite grab you
that some 40ft monster that

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can throw a boat about starts off
life as little teeny ripples.

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And yet, as soon as you
brought the wind machine out,

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you could see that
that's exactly what it was.

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The thing for me about
being on the sea is it reminds me

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how different an environment
the sea is to the land.

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Most of us live in cities

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where we're cut off from
the nature of power and energy.

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For us, you just flick
a switch and there's power.

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It flows through wires,

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lights come on, records play
and your dinner heats up.

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But we're unaware of what power is.

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When energy was generated
by rushing water,

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or even by steam, we had a visceral
knowledge of what power was about.

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Water rushed by and cogs turned
and hammers went up and down.

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Today it's all hidden from us

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and we live in such
a static, calm, quiet environment.

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It's not until you come back out
on the sea, you're reminded

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of the real nature of the dynamic,
the powerful side of reality.

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For me, what's so exciting
about waves

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is that they reveal what
is normally hidden from view.

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You can actually
see energy in action.

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They provide insight into
the forces that rule the universe.

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One of the strangest
things about waves

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is they're not really made of water.

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I know it doesn't sound right,
but they're really not.

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Think about sound.
Think about the words I'm saying.

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You wouldn't describe them
as MADE of air.

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You'd say they're vibrations
IN the air.

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And it's the same for waves.

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I've come to Cambridge University
to find out more

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'about this counterintuitive idea
that waves are not made of water.

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'Professor Michael McIntyre,
a leading physicist and
mathematician,

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'wants to prove it to me.

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'He's fascinated by the relationship
between atmosphere and ocean waves.'

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What a fab lab, don't you think?

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Oh, it's a beautiful lab,
and Stuart does a great job

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running a facility like this.
It's a great tradition in our

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department to do experiments as
well as mathematical theories.

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And I think you need both
to understand how things work.

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Stuart, can you make
a wave break around here?

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Certainly.

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The gentle waves out here

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aren't moving the water very much
except back and forth. The ducks!

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That gives you a visualisation of
how much the water is moving.

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It is moving a bit, but
the main motion is an oscillation.

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The ducks are going round in circles.

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Yes, they're certainly not
travelling with the wave.

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Not nearly as much.

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So most of the water, then,
is just going up and down?

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Well, it's actually going
in little circles or ellipses.

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Watch that duck carefully. You see?

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Oh, yes. You can feel that
when you stand in the beach.

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When the wave passes,
it pushes you one way

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and then drags you back the other.
Is that the same thing?

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Yes. That's the oscillatory
part of it.

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'Professor McIntyre's ducks show
it's not the water that's moving'

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but the energy.

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The water and ducks are
essentially stationary.

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They go around in a big circle,
almost back to where they started

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00:14:02,440 --> 00:14:06,680
from, while the waves of energy
move onwards.

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There's a surprising
parallel to waves

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00:14:27,280 --> 00:14:29,280
in an executive toy.

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00:14:32,840 --> 00:14:34,880
The balls in the middle hardly move,

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00:14:34,880 --> 00:14:40,960
yet the energy passes through them
and out the other side.

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00:14:40,960 --> 00:14:44,800
The balls are the medium
that transmits the energy

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00:14:44,800 --> 00:14:47,440
just as the water does in waves.

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00:14:50,400 --> 00:14:52,440
Hello, Dr Porter!

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00:14:52,440 --> 00:14:56,040
'Physicist Richard Porter has
studied waves for 20 years.'

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00:14:56,040 --> 00:14:58,640
Picked a good morning for it,
at least!

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00:14:58,640 --> 00:15:02,320
This is beautiful! 'He researches
them as a source of power.

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00:15:03,840 --> 00:15:08,400
'I met him at his open-air
wave tank, the sea off North Devon.'

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00:15:08,400 --> 00:15:12,480
Waves are a form
of transport of energy.

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00:15:12,480 --> 00:15:14,440
That's the way I would describe it.

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00:15:14,440 --> 00:15:16,480
And the water is what?
Just the medium?

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00:15:16,480 --> 00:15:18,240
The water just acts as the medium.

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00:15:18,240 --> 00:15:20,840
In this case, it's the water
that acts as the medium for

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00:15:20,840 --> 00:15:23,480
transporting that energy
in the form of this wave.

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00:15:23,480 --> 00:15:25,600
Like sound going through the air?
Exactly.

215
00:15:25,600 --> 00:15:28,960
I'm talking to you, and
the acoustic wave that you're hearing

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00:15:28,960 --> 00:15:32,720
is a wave which happens to propagate
through air using particles of air.

217
00:15:32,720 --> 00:15:37,400
And out there... And out there,
you just happen to have waves -

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00:15:37,400 --> 00:15:40,680
the energy which is travelling
along the surface of the water.

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00:15:40,680 --> 00:15:44,000
So there is no net
transport of water.

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00:15:44,000 --> 00:15:46,160
Yes. When we're standing
on the beach,

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00:15:46,160 --> 00:15:49,600
you get the impression that those
waves are bringing the water in,

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00:15:49,600 --> 00:15:50,760
but that is not right.

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00:15:50,760 --> 00:15:54,000
No, that's not right. Because they
appear to be bringing it in,

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even when the tide's going out.

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00:15:55,640 --> 00:15:58,800
That's right, and if they
were bringing in water,

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00:15:58,800 --> 00:16:01,920
then we'd all be doomed.
Everything would flood.

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00:16:01,920 --> 00:16:03,680
So that's not what happens.

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00:16:03,680 --> 00:16:06,720
What you see is the water
coming in and going back out again,

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00:16:06,720 --> 00:16:09,920
on a cycle, with the waves
coming against the shore.

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00:16:14,120 --> 00:16:17,360
When I watch the sea, I love to
listen to the sound of the waves.

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00:16:21,800 --> 00:16:24,800
I learned from Dr Porter that
very little of the energy is lost

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00:16:24,800 --> 00:16:27,240
as a wave travels across the ocean,

233
00:16:27,240 --> 00:16:31,520
but when it breaks on the shore,
the energy must go somewhere.

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00:16:40,200 --> 00:16:42,960
Some energy is absorbed by the sand,

235
00:16:42,960 --> 00:16:47,400
some bounces back into the sea,
and some turns into sound.

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00:16:55,200 --> 00:16:58,040
You've got some water,
you've got some air,

237
00:16:58,040 --> 00:16:59,200
you drop the liquid in

238
00:16:59,200 --> 00:17:01,120
and you listen to the sound here.

239
00:17:01,120 --> 00:17:03,040
Can we do that, then?
Let's have a go.

240
00:17:03,040 --> 00:17:04,880
Let's see what happens.

241
00:17:08,720 --> 00:17:12,440
'Tim Leighton is the bubble man
or, more formally,

242
00:17:12,440 --> 00:17:15,480
'Professor of Acoustics
at Southampton University.'

243
00:17:15,480 --> 00:17:16,760
OK, here comes the drop.

244
00:17:18,520 --> 00:17:20,680
'We've all heard the drop
of a leaky tap.

245
00:17:20,680 --> 00:17:25,440
'But the question is,
what exactly is making the noise?'

246
00:17:25,440 --> 00:17:28,400
It hits,
forms this crater - lovely crater -

247
00:17:28,400 --> 00:17:30,720
closes, pinches off the bubble...

248
00:17:30,720 --> 00:17:33,080
That tiny thing there?
That little thing.

249
00:17:33,080 --> 00:17:37,160
All the ripples on the surface,
which are very impressive visually,

250
00:17:37,160 --> 00:17:38,680
don't radiate the sound.

251
00:17:38,680 --> 00:17:40,280
It's that tiny little bubble.

252
00:17:44,960 --> 00:17:49,840
When magnified and slowed down, the
bubble constantly moves in and out.

253
00:17:52,760 --> 00:17:56,640
It's the vibrations of the bubble,
be it from a drop of water or inside

254
00:17:56,640 --> 00:18:00,840
an ocean wave,
that produce the noise.

255
00:18:00,840 --> 00:18:04,280
Hidden away amongst them are
pulsations, microscopic,

256
00:18:04,280 --> 00:18:09,560
and the pulsation is pushing
the water in and out, in and out,

257
00:18:09,560 --> 00:18:12,040
as it expands and contracts.

258
00:18:13,440 --> 00:18:16,960
Until this moment, I'd never
realised there WAS a bubble,

259
00:18:16,960 --> 00:18:20,240
let alone that its pulsing
made the noise.

260
00:18:22,240 --> 00:18:24,240
When you were talking
about bubbles,

261
00:18:24,240 --> 00:18:27,040
there was the temptation
to think it's when they pop.

262
00:18:27,040 --> 00:18:28,720
I was thinking of balloons. No.

263
00:18:28,720 --> 00:18:31,560
It's not at all?
I don't think they're kosher bubbles!

264
00:18:31,560 --> 00:18:37,480
You've got MY kind of bubbles...
When you're president
you're going to ban them!

265
00:18:37,480 --> 00:18:39,840
..are pockets of gas
surrounded by water.

266
00:18:39,840 --> 00:18:44,040
Now, the other kind of bubble -
a soap bubble for example - has gas

267
00:18:44,040 --> 00:18:49,280
and then a thin wall of liquid
and then gas outside. Right.

268
00:18:49,280 --> 00:18:53,040
But it doesn't have that huge mass of
liquid around it,

269
00:18:53,040 --> 00:18:55,760
providing the inertia,
so it won't act

270
00:18:55,760 --> 00:18:58,360
like a really powerful
sound source like this.

271
00:19:01,200 --> 00:19:04,320
The sound a bubble makes
depends on its size.

272
00:19:04,320 --> 00:19:07,880
We can hear this if we release
two different-sized bubbles.

273
00:19:11,320 --> 00:19:14,160
What you can see here
is the bubble on the left
is giving out the big bubbles.

274
00:19:14,160 --> 00:19:17,200
That is the regular,
"blonk, blonk, blonk".

275
00:19:20,680 --> 00:19:25,520
The smaller bubble, coming out
of the needle on the right,

276
00:19:25,520 --> 00:19:27,280
gives you a high "plink".

277
00:19:32,240 --> 00:19:36,040
If it's a different size,
it gives you a different note.
Pretty much, yes.

278
00:19:36,040 --> 00:19:39,880
It just so happens
that these millimetre-size bubbles

279
00:19:39,880 --> 00:19:43,120
give out plinks
at the frequencies we can hear,

280
00:19:43,120 --> 00:19:48,000
which is why babbling brooks makes
a poetical babble that you can hear.

281
00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:53,600
If the numbers came out differently,
the babbling brooks would be silent
and we'd have lost all that poetry.

282
00:19:53,600 --> 00:19:55,280
But as it is... So wait a minute,

283
00:19:55,280 --> 00:19:58,760
if the bubbles were just way too
small, we wouldn't hear them at all.

284
00:19:58,760 --> 00:20:02,200
Yeah, that's right. That's right.
The numbers turn out just right

285
00:20:02,200 --> 00:20:06,280
so that the babbling brook and the
waterfall and such like are musical.

286
00:20:06,280 --> 00:20:09,640
Fantastic. Yeah, it's nice, yeah.
That is quite good, isn't it?

287
00:20:12,200 --> 00:20:17,080
In a wave - obviously
I've never even thought of trying
to count the bubbles in a wave -

288
00:20:17,080 --> 00:20:20,160
but we were on the beach
a couple of weeks ago,

289
00:20:20,160 --> 00:20:23,720
and it was just a wall of Atlantic
surf, and it was just white.

290
00:20:23,720 --> 00:20:26,880
It was about, I don't know,
eight foot of whiteness,

291
00:20:26,880 --> 00:20:29,760
that's all bubbles, isn't it?
Where you see white...

292
00:20:29,760 --> 00:20:33,600
Just a metre of that
must have been an uncountable
number of your bubbles?

293
00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:35,480
Yeah, and each one is giving a noise,

294
00:20:35,480 --> 00:20:40,240
which is why we think of
oceans and waterfalls as being noisy,
and it is a very powerful noise.

295
00:20:40,240 --> 00:20:43,280
But we don't think of them being
noisy, they are. They are.

296
00:20:45,280 --> 00:20:51,440
The noise of an ocean wave
is made by all the bubbles,
all heard at once.

297
00:20:53,240 --> 00:20:56,160
Slow the sound of the wave
down far enough...

298
00:20:58,280 --> 00:21:04,080
..and we hear the individual notes,
each from a bubble vibrating.

299
00:21:05,080 --> 00:21:10,280
Multiply the bubbles up
a trillion-fold and they become
the song of the ocean.

300
00:21:12,280 --> 00:21:15,360
Each bubble is like a little bell
giving out a very pure note

301
00:21:15,360 --> 00:21:22,360
and what you see there is,
you've got a wobbly sea surface,
and then a couple of thousand bells,

302
00:21:22,360 --> 00:21:25,880
and it's obvious where the sound's
coming from. It is now, it is now.

303
00:21:30,320 --> 00:21:35,960
It's not just scientists who want
to know what happens to the energy
after it's crossed the ocean.

304
00:21:36,960 --> 00:21:40,200
Morning, gentlemen. Hello, there.

305
00:21:40,200 --> 00:21:42,600
Good to see you again.
Morning, mate.

306
00:21:42,600 --> 00:21:46,080
'Surfers also need to predict
the arrival of waves.'

307
00:21:48,080 --> 00:21:51,640
Did you know it was going
to be flat today? Yeah.

308
00:21:51,640 --> 00:21:53,600
How do you predict the waves?

309
00:21:53,600 --> 00:21:56,680
Is it something you have to do
with surfing? I presume it is.

310
00:21:56,680 --> 00:21:58,800
The earlier you know the waves
are going to be good,

311
00:21:58,800 --> 00:22:01,320
the easier it is to make a decision
about where to go surfing.

312
00:22:01,320 --> 00:22:03,720
So you can use, you can check
on mobile phones,

313
00:22:03,720 --> 00:22:08,960
I can check out the synoptic weather
charts which gives you an idea where
the low pressure is going to be.

314
00:22:08,960 --> 00:22:11,880
And ideally when you get here,
you want the wind
to be blowing off the land,

315
00:22:11,880 --> 00:22:14,600
which will make the waves
smoother and give us
a cleaner wave to surf.

316
00:22:14,600 --> 00:22:20,120
What we're looking for is one perfect
band of energy, really, moving in
sets, unaffected by anything else.

317
00:22:20,120 --> 00:22:23,160
What do you mean
by a perfect band of energy?

318
00:22:23,160 --> 00:22:27,680
Say there's a storm, north
of Scotland and it's nice and tight
and it creates one swell,

319
00:22:27,680 --> 00:22:33,680
then that swell travels and over
a period of time it becomes formed
into nice long lines of waves.

320
00:22:33,680 --> 00:22:35,040
Pulses of energy.

321
00:22:35,040 --> 00:22:39,320
And it's that energy
you're looking for. Is that
what you're surfing, the energy?

322
00:22:39,320 --> 00:22:42,520
Yeah, we're just looking
to ride the energy.

323
00:22:42,520 --> 00:22:45,280
On the perfect days, the water
doesn't really move...

324
00:22:45,280 --> 00:22:48,840
That's fantastic. ..So the energy
is just moving through the water.

325
00:22:59,800 --> 00:23:04,160
And the purest experience
is the nearest you get
to the pure form of energy.

326
00:23:04,160 --> 00:23:07,600
So the oscillations as they come
to the shore, as they continue in,

327
00:23:07,600 --> 00:23:10,320
that roundness, that hollowness.

328
00:23:29,960 --> 00:23:36,040
Surfers know all about the energy
of the wave and how its energy
has to go somewhere.

329
00:23:36,040 --> 00:23:39,520
I love the way surfers understand
this as well as any scientist.

330
00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:48,000
Richard Porter has explored
why it is that waves
contain so much energy.

331
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:51,400
If you really want to think
about how powerful a wave is,

332
00:23:51,400 --> 00:23:55,920
you just think about sitting
on a boat, just a little boat,
somewhere out to sea,

333
00:23:55,920 --> 00:24:00,320
and imagine you're sitting there
and the boat is moving up and down.

334
00:24:00,320 --> 00:24:03,840
But imagine how much power you'd
need to give to that boat

335
00:24:03,840 --> 00:24:07,800
just to lift it up and down.
And that energy comes from the wave.

336
00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:12,040
If you had to do that on land,
it would take a large group
of men to lift that up.

337
00:24:12,040 --> 00:24:16,800
Well, yeah, machinery to do that.
Whereas, on the boat, on the sea...
It just happens, right?

338
00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:20,440
So it is a huge, huge amount
of energy in a single wave.

339
00:24:20,440 --> 00:24:24,400
Surface waves are a fantastic way
of storing energy

340
00:24:24,400 --> 00:24:30,760
because they take energy, which
occupies a three-dimensional space.

341
00:24:30,760 --> 00:24:32,040
Like wind or something.

342
00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:35,800
Wind, it occupies the atmosphere,
it's three-dimensional

343
00:24:35,800 --> 00:24:39,480
and it transmits its energy
to these surface waves,

344
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:44,440
these waves that you see
on the ocean, which exist
upon the surface of the water.

345
00:24:44,440 --> 00:24:46,320
So they've kind of concentrated it.

346
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:49,800
Yes. So you've taken this
three-dimensional space,

347
00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:54,560
full of energy and you've transmitted
it into a two-dimensional surface,

348
00:24:54,560 --> 00:24:57,200
and that's a way
of focussing the energy.

349
00:24:57,200 --> 00:24:59,240
Which is what you see out there?

350
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:00,680
Exactly.

351
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:06,760
Yes. That makes sense to me.

352
00:25:30,760 --> 00:25:34,120
I've always thought of waves
as being on the surface of water.

353
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:42,360
Professor McIntyre showed me
that there are other types
of wave hidden below.

354
00:25:43,360 --> 00:25:48,600
The energy that creates
many of these internal waves
doesn't come from wind.

355
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:54,640
They owe their existence
to temperature and salinity
differences IN the ocean.

356
00:25:54,640 --> 00:26:00,920
In this tank, the heavy blue liquid
lies underneath a lighter clear one.

357
00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:03,600
This sort of thing is more
what you see near coasts,

358
00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:06,920
where a river runs out over
the ocean and makes an interface.

359
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:08,560
If you look along...

360
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:11,320
And I can just see them curve,
beginning to go over...

361
00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:15,800
And they're going the other way,
so you can have different waves
going in different directions.

362
00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:20,280
And they're not affecting each
other. Not very much. And this
comes out of the mathematics.

363
00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:22,200
But is this what
you get in the ocean?

364
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:28,440
You get waves doing something
down below and in addition
to the surface waves?

365
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:31,640
Yes, you get them at all levels.
You get them on any interface.

366
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:35,200
There's an air-water interface,
there's a water-water interface.

367
00:26:35,200 --> 00:26:38,880
So you get that kind
of wave on the surface,
that's what we're used to,

368
00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:41,160
and then 20 feet or 50 feet
or whatever it is,

369
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:44,040
you've got this going on,
which we don't normally see?

370
00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:45,560
Yes.

371
00:26:47,400 --> 00:26:52,920
Professor McIntyre's work shows that
surface waves are just the start.

372
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:59,000
Beneath them are larger internal
waves which run in different
directions to those on the surface.

373
00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:08,760
There are some very important waves
in the ocean which break sideways,
known as Rossby waves.

374
00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:17,040
The thing can move sideways and
there's a fundamental sideways
wave motion, called Rossby waves.

375
00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:20,080
I walked in here this morning
just having one kind of wave!

376
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:23,360
I've got about five now. But
if you want to understand the ocean,

377
00:27:23,360 --> 00:27:27,200
you have to have at least five.
I can mention more if you like.
Please don't.

378
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:29,480
Let's take Rossby waves,
cos they're fundamentally important.

379
00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:32,720
To understand how jets form you have
to understand Rossby waves

380
00:27:32,720 --> 00:27:35,120
and how they break
and they do it all sideways.

381
00:27:35,120 --> 00:27:38,080
Is that what it is?
If you think of the gulf stream,

382
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:42,840
it's essentially a jet
with Rossby waves on it
and they're breaking all the time.

383
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:46,160
That means they're
throwing off eddies, sideways,

384
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:49,640
and that's a kind of wave breaking,
from a Rossby wave perspective.

385
00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:55,720
And that wave breaking
is fundamentally how the jets
sharpen and maintain themselves.

386
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:57,800
How they stay narrow.

387
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:04,120
Rossby waves allow the Gulf Stream
to flow like a river

388
00:28:04,120 --> 00:28:07,640
within the Atlantic ocean,
for thousands of miles.

389
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:15,000
Without these sideways eddies,
the main current would break up,

390
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:20,200
the warming effect
of the Gulf Stream would disappear
and Europe would freeze over.

391
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:31,600
We have seen how energy travels
through water in the ocean

392
00:28:31,600 --> 00:28:35,640
but other waves of energy
are found throughout the universe.

393
00:28:37,680 --> 00:28:42,440
The world is actually filled
with waves, it's just that
we can't see them, generally.

394
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:46,280
Right here, there are quantum waves,
light waves, sound waves.

395
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:50,720
There are sound waves distorting
the air between me and you
right now, but we can't see them.

396
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:55,120
They happen on a time scale that
we can't appreciate or physically
at a scale we can't appreciate.

397
00:28:55,120 --> 00:29:00,720
The one place where you really see
this other reality is in the water.

398
00:29:01,720 --> 00:29:06,200
That's where you can see
the waves doing what they do,
making the world work.

399
00:29:07,720 --> 00:29:12,360
And once you realise that, you
realise that the familiar world,

400
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:17,080
the static world of rocks and
cliffs, is just one side of reality,

401
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:21,920
there is this other reality
where everything is actually
in motion, in process.

402
00:29:25,240 --> 00:29:29,320
It is this that makes water waves
so fascinating for me.

403
00:29:29,320 --> 00:29:34,640
They're not made of water, so a wave
isn't really a tangible object.

404
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:36,680
Waves are process.

405
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:52,600
Michael McIntyre
recognises that process
is the important side of reality,

406
00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:55,520
yet it's often hidden from us.

407
00:29:55,520 --> 00:29:57,800
If we want to understand
anything in depth,

408
00:29:57,800 --> 00:30:00,520
we usually find we need
to think of it both as objects

409
00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:03,880
and as dynamic processes
and see how it all fits together.

410
00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:08,920
I always tell my students, "What
is understanding?" Understanding
means being able to see something

411
00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:13,960
from more than one viewpoint,
make it all consistent, do it in
equations, in words, in pictures.

412
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:16,200
make it all hang together
consistently.

413
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:21,280
Very often we say, "OK, that's
an object but if you zoom
in you'll see a process."

414
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:24,240
Do you like that Heraclites quote,

415
00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:29,920
that everything flows and nothing
persists, or nothing endures?

416
00:30:29,920 --> 00:30:33,120
Well, I'd agree with him, certainly.

417
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:36,720
Our whole understanding of the
cosmos says that that's the case.

418
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:38,720
And waves are
the archetype for that.

419
00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:43,080
That's why we thought
we would make this film on waves,
as the science of change.

420
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:48,760
Because, you can understand
that quote and the idea of process,

421
00:30:48,760 --> 00:30:52,840
intellectually,
but it's very difficult to see it
most places, isn't it?

422
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:56,880
I mean you can't stare
at a table and see it as a process.
It's an object.

423
00:30:56,880 --> 00:31:01,520
But waves, it's right there,
isn't it? Yeah, ordinary waves
on the surface of the sea,

424
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:04,920
they're highly visible, so they
give us all sorts of new ideas.

425
00:31:09,440 --> 00:31:17,360
Understanding waves reveals the
processes that govern the universe
and therefore govern our lives too.

426
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:24,560
Almost by definition,
waves are about the transformation
of energy and so are people.

427
00:31:26,440 --> 00:31:30,800
We harness energy to keep us alive,
from cradle to grave.

428
00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:35,080
Without this constant
throughput of energy,
we'd just be a pile of atoms.

429
00:31:39,680 --> 00:31:43,800
Our lives are in continuous change.

430
00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:51,720
As you get older,
especially once you've had children,

431
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:55,440
you start to think that life
maybe really is a process.

432
00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:59,400
It stops being just you
as a static thing in your life

433
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:05,320
and suddenly there's a process
of your parents getting older
and your children coming along,

434
00:32:05,320 --> 00:32:08,440
and life seems somehow to be moving,

435
00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:13,520
like a wave, it's shifting along
and you're going with it.

436
00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:17,920
And for me, it was quite
a fundamental change.

437
00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:33,560
To have children, to grow older,
it's all part of our life-cycle,
a dynamic process of change.

438
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:46,280
Seeing our lives as process
is part of a philosophical debate
that's long intrigued me.

439
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:50,280
The debate is over whether
it is more fundamental, more true,

440
00:32:50,280 --> 00:32:53,680
to view the world as objects
or as processes.

441
00:33:01,120 --> 00:33:05,840
I think most of the time, we see the
world as a collection of objects.

442
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:14,040
This is because so many
processes are invisible.

443
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:22,480
Take the creation
and erosion of a coastline.

444
00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:27,080
It happens over thousands of years,
a period of time
inaccessible to humans.

445
00:33:32,760 --> 00:33:37,120
To us, on the beach, the coastline
appears static and inviolable.

446
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:44,960
Except for waves, virtually
everything around us is like this,

447
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:50,280
and that's perhaps why humans
are hard-wired to perceive
the world as full of objects.

448
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:59,880
But Richard Porter,
who constantly studies waves,
has a different perspective.

449
00:33:59,880 --> 00:34:02,160
Making mountains is a slow process,

450
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:05,040
but, clearly, it's
a very powerful process.

451
00:34:05,040 --> 00:34:10,800
And this is a fast process
on that timescale,

452
00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:14,280
but it's a timescale that we can
actually observe. It's a human one.

453
00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:21,840
And waves are a way of doing that,
to remind people, actually,
the world isn't a static place,

454
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:25,440
that it is full of this energy,
which is doing things.

455
00:34:25,440 --> 00:34:32,440
Yes. I think that waves in some ways

456
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:38,400
are almost uniquely placed in
that they are essentially things

457
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:42,040
that are created
and destroyed in equal measure.

458
00:34:42,040 --> 00:34:45,440
They're always being created.
They're always being destroyed.

459
00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:49,680
And you think of all of
the other types of natural forces
that you see at work,

460
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:52,920
and you don't quite see that level
of dynamism that you have.

461
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:55,520
You tend to see one end
of the process or the other.

462
00:34:55,520 --> 00:34:59,240
With wind, you see wind generated
and then it disappears off somewhere

463
00:34:59,240 --> 00:35:01,680
and you don't really
get to know where it goes.

464
00:35:01,680 --> 00:35:06,240
But you've got this
continual sort of,
these waves coming in, continuously.

465
00:35:06,240 --> 00:35:09,280
It is this permanent exchange
of energy.

466
00:35:21,720 --> 00:35:26,440
Professor Markus Kirkilionis uses
maths to model the natural world.

467
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:30,680
He pushes the concept of waves
further than anyone else.

468
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:34,720
Hello, Professor Kirkilionis. Nice
to meet you. Nice to meet you too.

469
00:35:34,720 --> 00:35:38,800
We've talked a lot to physicists
and I can see why they're
interested in waves,

470
00:35:38,800 --> 00:35:42,480
why are they important for maths? Do
you see waves when you look around,

471
00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:45,080
when you look in the world,
do you see other waves?

472
00:35:45,080 --> 00:35:48,440
Oh, I see waves everywhere,
to be honest, yes!

473
00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:52,160
Just look at this marvellous city.

474
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:55,640
It has spread for centuries.

475
00:35:55,640 --> 00:35:59,520
If you would now give me
a map of London,

476
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:04,120
let's say 500 years ago
and we would gradually,
every 50 years, look at it,

477
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:08,240
you would actually see
a wave-like structure evolving.

478
00:36:08,240 --> 00:36:10,520
If you compare such a city,

479
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:15,160
with all its processes
that are going on all the time,

480
00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:18,680
you have a lot
of similarity to all this,

481
00:36:18,680 --> 00:36:23,600
to the waves in the ocean
at a very windy day,
where a lot of things are going on.

482
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:29,160
What is interesting for us
in a wave is usually it's dynamic
behaviour, that it does something,

483
00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:33,840
it transmits something,
like information or energy and...

484
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:38,400
And also its very, being
is slightly more tenuous. That's
the thing that's interesting to me.

485
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:42,880
You look out at buildings
and there's this notion that
we don't need to worry about them,

486
00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:44,840
they're just going
to be there forever.

487
00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:51,960
The energy within a process
is always changing.

488
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:55,560
The energy within an object
is locked in place.

489
00:36:55,560 --> 00:37:00,720
But perhaps this constancy
of an object is just an illusion.

490
00:37:00,720 --> 00:37:07,160
Whether we can call something
a static thing or a dynamic thing,

491
00:37:07,160 --> 00:37:11,080
that really depends on the timescale
you are observing it

492
00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:15,640
and that's a general principle
that is, of course,
also valid in mathematics.

493
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:19,640
But is it still worth having
the distinction between
objects and processes?

494
00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:24,640
I mean, take St Paul's.
Now is that an object for you?

495
00:37:24,640 --> 00:37:30,280
Well, I think for us humans,
it is naturally an object first,

496
00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:35,720
because our lifetime, compared
to St Paul's, is much shorter,

497
00:37:35,720 --> 00:37:40,080
so we will not see
any change in this object.

498
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:44,520
Also, the physical forces
inside the building,
you know, all the atoms,

499
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:50,280
together, they form something solid
which will not change in time,

500
00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:53,920
at least not over the time
we both can observe it.

501
00:37:53,920 --> 00:37:59,160
And that is a principle
that applies to a lot
of mathematical objects as well.

502
00:37:59,160 --> 00:38:01,160
It does work
at a mathematical level?

503
00:38:01,160 --> 00:38:05,040
Yes, so typically
in the mathematical equations,

504
00:38:05,040 --> 00:38:09,400
you can distinguish between solutions
that are constant in time -

505
00:38:09,400 --> 00:38:12,920
we call them equilibrium
solutions or steady states -

506
00:38:12,920 --> 00:38:20,840
and other solutions to the same
equation that are non-constant -
we call them transients, very often.

507
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:25,480
And the wave would be typically
a transient... Ah yeah, yeah.

508
00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:31,600
And you can study these objects, for
example, in terms of their stability.

509
00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:36,640
So there is this distinction
between stability
and instability in the world.

510
00:38:37,640 --> 00:38:40,800
Which means the division
between object and process,

511
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:44,360
between a cathedral and a wave,

512
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:47,800
is actually based
on a bedrock of mathematics.

513
00:39:08,200 --> 00:39:12,720
It was mathematics that was central
to the work on wave heights

514
00:39:12,720 --> 00:39:14,040
during World War II.

515
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:19,680
A young oceanographer
by the name of Walter Munk

516
00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:24,480
found a way to predict the waves
for the invasion of North Africa.

517
00:39:29,160 --> 00:39:31,640
Munk realised that
the height of the waves

518
00:39:31,640 --> 00:39:37,280
was directly correlated to the
wind energy injected into the waves.

519
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:39,760
So what were the things
that he was looking for?

520
00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:42,360
So he worked out there were
three crucial factors

521
00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:44,560
in determining
the size of the waves.

522
00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:47,280
One is the strength of the wind

523
00:39:47,280 --> 00:39:49,720
blowing over
the surface of the water.

524
00:39:49,720 --> 00:39:51,560
So the strength of the storm winds.

525
00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:55,480
The second is the duration that
that wind is blowing for. Right.

526
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:58,120
And the third is
what's known as the fetch,

527
00:39:58,120 --> 00:40:03,960
which is the area of sea
that the wind is blowing over.

528
00:40:03,960 --> 00:40:06,280
So the longer the fetch is,

529
00:40:06,280 --> 00:40:09,600
the greater the distance
that this wind is blowing across.

530
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:12,440
And these three factors all determine

531
00:40:12,440 --> 00:40:15,960
how much energy the wind gives
to the surface of the water.

532
00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:19,040
Imagine the kind of responsibility -

533
00:40:19,040 --> 00:40:24,200
he was 26, 27, and he had
the responsibility of determining...

534
00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:29,920
Of picking dates for these
amphibious landings in North Africa.

535
00:40:29,920 --> 00:40:32,760
You know, that's a lot of weight
on your shoulders.

536
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:36,680
'After the war, Walter Munk
carried on with his research.

537
00:40:36,680 --> 00:40:38,280
'He was the first to suspect

538
00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:42,880
'that the energy contained in a wave
is remarkably persistent.'

539
00:40:42,880 --> 00:40:45,600
One of the things
he became very interested in

540
00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:52,480
was the progress of ocean waves,
having been generated in a storm

541
00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:54,520
and before arriving at some shore.

542
00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:57,600
Ah, so he's filling in the
middle bit. The middle bit, yeah.

543
00:40:57,600 --> 00:41:02,320
How far they would travel on their
own steam, as it were. Right.

544
00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:08,120
So from storms that generated the
waves off the coast of Antarctica...

545
00:41:08,120 --> 00:41:11,080
He was trying to follow them?
He followed them, yes.

546
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:13,800
There are six stations
off the coast of Antarctic,

547
00:41:13,800 --> 00:41:20,520
they went up past New Zealand
and then past Samoa, Hawaii.

548
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:26,720
Each of these measuring stations
were a few thousands of miles
from the last one.

549
00:41:26,720 --> 00:41:31,640
In the North Pacific - the last
of their measuring stations -

550
00:41:31,640 --> 00:41:36,400
since there was no island there
they used this boat known as FLIP.

551
00:41:39,720 --> 00:41:42,320
No, you're kidding me!
And it does actually flip!

552
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:45,760
It was like
a Thunderbirds-type thing.

553
00:41:45,760 --> 00:41:48,560
Only the Americans would
come up with a boat like that.

554
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:51,160
Does it really tip up?

555
00:41:51,160 --> 00:41:55,520
One end of the boat goes into the
water and the other end sticks out.

556
00:41:55,520 --> 00:41:58,600
That must be slightly alarming.

557
00:41:58,600 --> 00:42:01,440
The reason for this
is that they want to

558
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:03,880
try and get the boat
as steady as possible

559
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:06,760
when there's no land to tether it to.

560
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:14,280
And the way to do that is to
kind of anchor the boat in the water.

561
00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:17,680
Deeper down. Deep down,
below the motion of the waves.

562
00:42:17,680 --> 00:42:20,720
So it's like sticking
a big pendulum...

563
00:42:20,720 --> 00:42:23,720
the weight's at the bottom
so is going to be fairly steady.

564
00:42:23,720 --> 00:42:25,920
Yeah. That's clever. The depth...

565
00:42:25,920 --> 00:42:28,480
I don't think I'd have liked
to be on that boat though.

566
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:31,840
I mean, you'd be in the middle of
the sea and it'd starts tipping up.

567
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:36,720
You've got to make sure you tell
everybody when you're going to
tip it. Very important. My God!

568
00:42:36,720 --> 00:42:37,840
And did it work?

569
00:42:37,840 --> 00:42:41,200
Yes, they were certainly
able to measure them there

570
00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:44,400
and that was quite late on
in the progress of the waves.

571
00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:48,920
And where would they end up?
They eventually ended up
on the coast of Alaska, having...

572
00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:53,480
The coast of Alaska,
all the way from Antarctica? Yeah.

573
00:42:53,480 --> 00:42:57,560
It was a 7,000 mile journey.
Astonishing, really.

574
00:42:57,560 --> 00:42:59,960
How does he know
that they're the same waves?

575
00:42:59,960 --> 00:43:05,000
Well, that was really
the tricky part of the study.

576
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:08,080
It was all to do with knowing
what they were looking for

577
00:43:08,080 --> 00:43:11,920
so the work that had been done
during the war

578
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:18,040
for measuring how waves develop and
change with distance from the storm

579
00:43:18,040 --> 00:43:19,920
was crucial in this.

580
00:43:19,920 --> 00:43:24,720
Because that told them
what size the waves ought to be

581
00:43:24,720 --> 00:43:26,680
by the time they reached this area.

582
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:30,960
And remember, once those waves
reached the shore of Alaska

583
00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:32,800
at the far end of this journey,

584
00:43:32,800 --> 00:43:37,000
which took them, incidentally, about
two weeks to make this journey...

585
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:40,800
7,000 miles in two weeks?! Yeah.
That's moving along.

586
00:43:40,800 --> 00:43:43,080
They do, don't they, yeah.

587
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:46,080
But once they reached the other end,

588
00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:52,760
the energy has been spread in this
fan-like way over such a large area

589
00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:56,840
that the wave is very, very small
by the time they reach it -

590
00:43:56,840 --> 00:43:59,760
just a matter of
millimetres in height.

591
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:04,640
So by the time it gets to Alaska,
it's very shallow but...

592
00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:05,840
Very, very broad.

593
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:14,280
Munk was the first man who actually
thought to follow waves

594
00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:16,160
and find out
what happened to them.

595
00:44:16,160 --> 00:44:20,280
He followed them over 7,000 miles,
an absolutely epic piece of work.

596
00:44:20,280 --> 00:44:25,760
But what he didn't look at was what
happened to waves when they come
to the end of their life cycle.

597
00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:28,200
When they arrive
at the other edge of the sea.

598
00:44:31,760 --> 00:44:33,040
For thousands of miles,

599
00:44:33,040 --> 00:44:38,240
a wave has a perfectly regular
undulating shape.

600
00:44:38,240 --> 00:44:40,040
Then as the wave nears the shore,

601
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:43,760
it rears up into a crest
just before it breaks.

602
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:47,160
Something has caused it to change.

603
00:44:48,520 --> 00:44:51,760
Essentially what happens is,
as it comes in towards the shore,

604
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:54,840
it feels the presence of the beach
that much more

605
00:44:54,840 --> 00:45:00,520
and there is suddenly a great
difference between what is happening
at the top of the wave

606
00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:03,280
and what is happening
at the bottom of the wave.

607
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:05,040
Theoretically, what that does is

608
00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:08,640
the wave at the top wants to move
faster than the wave at the bottom

609
00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:10,920
and that's what causes
this over-turning.

610
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:14,640
Because the speed of the wave
is dependent upon the depth.

611
00:45:17,040 --> 00:45:18,880
For the most part, out in the ocean,

612
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:22,360
the depth is so deep that it's
all moving at the same speed.

613
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:24,400
But when you come
towards the shore...

614
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:26,440
The bottom slows down
for some reason.

615
00:45:26,440 --> 00:45:28,880
So the bottom has such an impact
all of a sudden

616
00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:31,160
that the change
in the height is crucial.

617
00:45:34,200 --> 00:45:36,520
'I was curious to see what happens

618
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:39,240
'when the energy
of a wave dissipates,

619
00:45:39,240 --> 00:45:43,200
'with the help, once again, of
Professor McIntyre's rubber ducks.'

620
00:45:43,200 --> 00:45:45,960
So down there it's mostly
the energy which is moving?

621
00:45:45,960 --> 00:45:48,000
Well, the energy
is going much faster.

622
00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:50,680
See how much faster the crests
are than the ducks? Yes.

623
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:53,320
That slow drift will take them
close to the beach

624
00:45:53,320 --> 00:45:57,200
and watch carefully from now on...

625
00:45:57,200 --> 00:45:58,400
That green duck - look.

626
00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:02,000
Suddenly, it gets swept
all the way up to the beach.

627
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:07,120
That's where the wave motion becomes,
as it were, water motion
or energy propagation.

628
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:08,920
So when it curls over there,

629
00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:13,480
it ceases to be
just the energy that's moving

630
00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:15,280
and the water
does actually move?

631
00:46:15,280 --> 00:46:18,320
Is it basically that you
are trying to conserve the energy?

632
00:46:18,320 --> 00:46:22,400
The energy has to go somewhere and
it has to grab the water, basically?

633
00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:24,440
Not much energy reflects back out.

634
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:26,320
So most of it has to accumulate

635
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:30,000
and that's why you get the sudden
violence of the wave breaking.

636
00:46:30,000 --> 00:46:31,440
Look at that. I love that.

637
00:46:36,640 --> 00:46:39,360
It's a wonderful visualisation

638
00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:43,880
of gentle wave motion becoming
violent wave motion. It is.

639
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:48,800
You can suddenly, from up there, see
it get vertical and then falls over.

640
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:53,760
Yes. I always think waves are a
bit like a man carrying a heavy
weight that you tip forward.

641
00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:54,800
He can keep going.

642
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:58,080
He can keep carrying the weight
as long as he keeps going forward.

643
00:46:58,080 --> 00:46:59,680
But if he ever has to stop...

644
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:00,720
Splat!

645
00:47:06,800 --> 00:47:10,680
It's a law of the universe
that energy cannot be destroyed

646
00:47:10,680 --> 00:47:15,560
so as the wave reaches the shore,
its energy has to go somewhere.

647
00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:21,080
There are a surprising
number of options.

648
00:47:23,160 --> 00:47:27,960
There it is, it's travelled
all the way across the Atlantic,
happily minding its own business.

649
00:47:27,960 --> 00:47:31,040
It gets to the beach and if
it was sentient it would be going,

650
00:47:31,040 --> 00:47:33,520
"Oh, my God,
we're running out of water!"

651
00:47:35,040 --> 00:47:39,040
Well, it has to do
something different, hasn't it?

652
00:47:39,040 --> 00:47:40,400
Yes, it has to do something.

653
00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:45,720
You cannot make the energy vaporise.
So it's going, "OK lads, what do
we do now?" There's no water left!"

654
00:47:45,720 --> 00:47:51,680
Things are changed. The energy
is experiencing something different
when it reaches this region here.

655
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:53,560
So what does it do? Well, it breaks.

656
00:47:53,560 --> 00:47:55,880
Right, so that uses
some of the energy. Yes.

657
00:47:55,880 --> 00:47:58,680
And you see all of the foam

658
00:47:58,680 --> 00:48:01,400
and you hear the noise
of the waves breaking -

659
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:02,800
that's more of the energy.

660
00:48:02,800 --> 00:48:04,800
You're just dissipating energy.

661
00:48:04,800 --> 00:48:08,320
And then presumably, it thumps down
onto the sand and that uses a bit?

662
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:10,440
Exactly, so the sand
will absorb energy,

663
00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:14,200
there'll be friction associated
with moving the sand.

664
00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:16,680
It shifts tonnes of sand
along with it. Exactly.

665
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:19,360
That takes an awful
lot amount of energy as well.

666
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:33,040
Each individual wave
was born thousands of miles away,

667
00:48:33,040 --> 00:48:34,480
travelled across the ocean,

668
00:48:34,480 --> 00:48:38,920
and breaks on the shore in a chaotic
confusion of energy and mathematics.

669
00:48:42,240 --> 00:48:47,520
In that moment, the wave dies
and the energy moves on...

670
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:54,840
..as heat from friction,

671
00:48:54,840 --> 00:48:57,120
as shifting sand and kinetic energy,

672
00:48:57,120 --> 00:49:00,080
and sound energy from the bubbles.

673
00:49:02,240 --> 00:49:05,760
I wonder if the energy
that powers a wave

674
00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:08,240
is similar to the energy
that keeps us alive?

675
00:49:17,960 --> 00:49:19,560
Think of the boat on the sea.

676
00:49:19,560 --> 00:49:22,000
The boat is an object
that doesn't change.

677
00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:25,720
The waves upon which it rides are
nothing but change.

678
00:49:25,720 --> 00:49:29,680
The continued existence of the boat
depends on it resisting change.

679
00:49:29,680 --> 00:49:34,040
The continued existence of the waves
are that they continually change.

680
00:49:34,040 --> 00:49:37,120
Now think of the man on the boat.

681
00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:38,440
Which one is he most like?

682
00:49:40,520 --> 00:49:44,560
'If you look at a human being, is a
human being an object or a process?'

683
00:49:44,560 --> 00:49:46,480
Or do you even buy the distinction?

684
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:49,120
I would buy the distinction.

685
00:49:49,120 --> 00:49:54,160
It corresponds to different points
of view you can naturally have.

686
00:49:54,160 --> 00:49:58,960
I think a body - the man, of course -

687
00:49:58,960 --> 00:50:02,160
is an organism, is a living thing.

688
00:50:02,160 --> 00:50:05,760
So it is something that is a process

689
00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:09,720
because it has to constantly
exchange energy, material,

690
00:50:09,720 --> 00:50:12,240
with the environment
in order to persist.

691
00:50:12,240 --> 00:50:16,000
I mean, we are constantly feeding,
we have metabolism

692
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:18,920
and of course,
we're exchanging all our atoms.

693
00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:21,640
But still we are
maintaining our shape

694
00:50:21,640 --> 00:50:26,840
and we can recognise after ten years
that we are the same kind of person.

695
00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:30,040
And the same of course
holds in a sense for the wave.

696
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:40,480
I am 48 years old

697
00:50:40,480 --> 00:50:42,760
and there are few atoms inside me

698
00:50:42,760 --> 00:50:45,120
that I would've possessed
when I was born.

699
00:50:50,080 --> 00:50:54,480
The oxygen, water and food
we consume is all borrowed.

700
00:50:54,480 --> 00:50:58,360
In the same way, an ocean wave
borrows the water it passes through.

701
00:51:04,600 --> 00:51:10,440
This idea of human life as a dynamic
process intrigues Raymond Tallis,

702
00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:16,040
former professor of geriatric
medicine, poet and philosopher.

703
00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:17,720
Do you think that the reason that

704
00:51:17,720 --> 00:51:22,280
making a metaphor
between human beings and waves
has a believability about it

705
00:51:22,280 --> 00:51:27,040
is that we're not finished
objects, we're kind of in flux?

706
00:51:27,040 --> 00:51:30,360
I mean, you can't make much metaphor
out of a human being and a cup

707
00:51:30,360 --> 00:51:33,560
because it's finished,
there's nothing else happening.

708
00:51:33,560 --> 00:51:35,200
Whereas, with a wave you can.

709
00:51:35,200 --> 00:51:38,560
I think that's
profoundly true, actually.

710
00:51:38,560 --> 00:51:42,360
It seems to me that a wave is
only completed when it's destroyed

711
00:51:42,360 --> 00:51:47,680
and a life is only completed,
in a sense, when it's destroyed.

712
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:51,880
What is arrival for a wave?

713
00:51:51,880 --> 00:51:55,000
It either bumps into a barrier,
in which case it bounces back

714
00:51:55,000 --> 00:51:57,480
and continues or it's dissipated.

715
00:51:57,480 --> 00:51:58,840
It breaks and it's gone.

716
00:51:58,840 --> 00:52:01,720
And it seems to me that
the arrival for a wave...

717
00:52:01,720 --> 00:52:05,240
well, the arrival for a life,
is dissipation.

718
00:52:05,240 --> 00:52:07,920
Right. It's building up to that?

719
00:52:07,920 --> 00:52:10,160
Yes. That's a bit pessimistic,
isn't it?

720
00:52:10,160 --> 00:52:12,520
One mustn't take it
too tragically, I guess.

721
00:52:12,520 --> 00:52:15,520
How do you think about
your own mortality?

722
00:52:15,520 --> 00:52:17,120
Well, I'm not in favour of it.

723
00:52:17,120 --> 00:52:22,200
It seems to me that it is obviously
the central fact of our lives,

724
00:52:22,200 --> 00:52:23,480
that they are finite.

725
00:52:23,480 --> 00:52:26,080
But the fact they've
been produced by processes

726
00:52:26,080 --> 00:52:28,840
means that they're going to be

727
00:52:28,840 --> 00:52:32,480
destroyed by processes. Those
who live by the laws of physics,

728
00:52:32,480 --> 00:52:34,560
die by the laws of physics,
basically.

729
00:52:34,560 --> 00:52:35,880
And then for that reason,

730
00:52:35,880 --> 00:52:38,600
one has to accept it with
as good a grace as possible.

731
00:52:44,080 --> 00:52:46,880
At death, the energy
that has kept us alive

732
00:52:46,880 --> 00:52:49,120
leaves us as heat and entropy.

733
00:52:52,840 --> 00:52:56,480
I believe that this dissipation
of energy at the end of life

734
00:52:56,480 --> 00:52:59,960
is equivalent
to the breaking of a wave.

735
00:53:02,240 --> 00:53:04,600
If you've ever seen
the moment of death,

736
00:53:04,600 --> 00:53:07,440
it's a very strange thing.

737
00:53:07,440 --> 00:53:11,600
One minute, there's an energy there,
and then its gone.

738
00:53:11,600 --> 00:53:14,960
Nothing else has changed,
and yet everything has changed.

739
00:53:14,960 --> 00:53:20,600
Because the energy that
WAS that person has moved on.

740
00:53:26,920 --> 00:53:30,320
It's easier to consider death
as a necessary evil

741
00:53:30,320 --> 00:53:34,480
if you think through what would
happen if our lives never changed.

742
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:37,800
Imagine your perfect day,

743
00:53:37,800 --> 00:53:41,240
where everything is exactly
as you want it to be.

744
00:53:41,240 --> 00:53:44,080
Now imagine it repeated
the next day.

745
00:53:44,080 --> 00:53:46,240
And the next and all the next week.

746
00:53:46,240 --> 00:53:49,840
How long would it be before
your perfect timeless paradise

747
00:53:49,840 --> 00:53:52,960
became absolutely hellish
and you wanted out?

748
00:53:52,960 --> 00:53:55,200
You see, we want that
process of change.

749
00:53:55,200 --> 00:53:59,880
Think of it this way -
would you really want to be able

750
00:53:59,880 --> 00:54:03,160
to keep your parents forever
and never having them die?

751
00:54:03,160 --> 00:54:06,240
But the cost would be you
could never have any children.

752
00:54:06,240 --> 00:54:08,920
We don't want that,
we are transitory beings.

753
00:54:08,920 --> 00:54:14,880
We want the joy of the new, and the
cost is, we have to let the old go.

754
00:54:22,800 --> 00:54:25,400
My mother and father have
been coming to this spot

755
00:54:25,400 --> 00:54:26,560
ever since I was born

756
00:54:26,560 --> 00:54:29,400
to look at the ruined priory nearby

757
00:54:29,400 --> 00:54:32,320
'and to watch the waves.'

758
00:54:32,320 --> 00:54:35,560
I was just thinking how
I must have been, what,

759
00:54:35,560 --> 00:54:38,040
two and half
the first time I went to the priory.

760
00:54:38,040 --> 00:54:43,200
Two and half? Don't you think?
Really. Oh, yeah.
I used to take you down there.

761
00:54:43,200 --> 00:54:46,480
I remember feeling the railings
being quite rough,

762
00:54:46,480 --> 00:54:49,720
and you'd stand there and you'd
kind of see the wave coming in.

763
00:54:49,720 --> 00:54:52,120
And you'd see it coming...!

764
00:55:00,240 --> 00:55:04,120
'A few months after we filmed
this scene, my mother died.'

765
00:55:04,120 --> 00:55:06,680
'I've actually got lots of
photographs of my mum,

766
00:55:06,680 --> 00:55:11,880
'but the only film I have of her
we shot for this film,'

767
00:55:11,880 --> 00:55:16,720
and I decided to film her because I
realised it was maybe my last chance

768
00:55:16,720 --> 00:55:18,360
because she was dying.

769
00:55:20,400 --> 00:55:24,400
'I realised even as
we were filming it'

770
00:55:24,400 --> 00:55:27,960
that there I was making a film
about how things are transitory,

771
00:55:27,960 --> 00:55:31,320
and how things have to move on,

772
00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:35,160
and yet here we were
taking a photograph of her,

773
00:55:35,160 --> 00:55:40,560
taking a film of her so that somehow
I could hold that moment.

774
00:55:40,560 --> 00:55:44,760
Illogical as I knew it was,
I still wanted to do it.

775
00:55:48,320 --> 00:55:51,920
'And so it's just the way it's
worked out that this film'

776
00:55:51,920 --> 00:55:55,160
and the priory and the waves

777
00:55:55,160 --> 00:55:59,280
have all become
inextricably linked for me.

778
00:56:03,960 --> 00:56:07,720
Perhaps I could add something. There
is also the compensation of death,

779
00:56:07,720 --> 00:56:11,080
which is to say, without a conclusion
there is no sense of form.

780
00:56:11,080 --> 00:56:15,600
There is no sense of rounded meaning.

781
00:56:15,600 --> 00:56:22,680
In many ways, meaning itself
cannot be...boundlessly open.

782
00:56:22,680 --> 00:56:26,480
We need closure. We need narrowing.
We need sealing off to some extent.

783
00:56:26,480 --> 00:56:29,480
A piece of music would not be
enjoyable if went on forever.

784
00:56:29,480 --> 00:56:33,800
And that's why an endless
succession of waves, all identical,

785
00:56:33,800 --> 00:56:35,800
would not be very attractive,

786
00:56:35,800 --> 00:56:38,400
however individually
beautiful the waves were.

787
00:56:38,400 --> 00:56:41,240
You have to have inflection.
When we listen to a clock,

788
00:56:41,240 --> 00:56:45,680
we don't hear "tick tick tick tick".
We hear "tick-tock tick-tock",

789
00:56:45,680 --> 00:56:49,080
as if we have to divide in something
into a beginning and an end

790
00:56:49,080 --> 00:56:52,200
just to give us some sense
of structure and closure.

791
00:57:10,920 --> 00:57:14,080
What's come out of this film for me
is I started out thinking

792
00:57:14,080 --> 00:57:19,320
there was this beautiful poetic
metaphorical connection between

793
00:57:19,320 --> 00:57:24,040
waves as a process
and us and our transitory lives.

794
00:57:24,040 --> 00:57:28,560
I was sure that that was important,
but I thought in a poetic way.

795
00:57:30,760 --> 00:57:34,200
What I've learnt is that
it's not just poetry,

796
00:57:34,200 --> 00:57:35,800
It's not just a metaphor,

797
00:57:35,800 --> 00:57:40,840
that just as it is the energy
in a wave which

798
00:57:40,840 --> 00:57:43,200
forces all of the atoms
of the water

799
00:57:43,200 --> 00:57:46,520
into that beautiful and unlikely
shape of a wave,

800
00:57:46,520 --> 00:57:50,440
so in us, it's the throughput of
energy in our lives which keeps

801
00:57:50,440 --> 00:57:53,480
us and our atoms
in this unlikely shape.

802
00:57:53,480 --> 00:57:57,480
And that just as when the energy
moves on from a wave and it breaks,

803
00:57:57,480 --> 00:57:59,160
so it is for us.

804
00:57:59,160 --> 00:58:01,560
And so what I've learnt is that

805
00:58:01,560 --> 00:58:05,040
we're not just metaphorically
like a wave.

806
00:58:05,040 --> 00:58:11,200
In some really important
and scientific way, we ARE a wave.

807
00:58:28,320 --> 00:58:32,600
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808
00:58:32,600 --> 00:58:37,080
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