Acoustics & Sound For Musicians - Online Book
The Theory Of Sound Which Constitutes The Physical Basis Of The Art Of Music.
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8 MOTION OF PARTICLES IN A SEA-WAVE. [I. § 5. |
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steadily forward horizontally, each of the fluid particles which compose them describes over and over again a fixed orbit of its own.
Thus, when we say that the waves advance horizontally, we mean, not that the masses of water of which they at any given instant consist advance, but that these masses, by virtue of the separate motions of their individual particles, successively arrange themselves in the same relative positions, so that the curved shapes of the surface, which we call waves, are horizontally transmitted without their materials sharing in the progress. The accompanying figure will show how this happens.
Fig. 1. |
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Let the full curved line AB represent a section of a part of the sea-surface at any given instant made by a vertical plane through the direction of wave-motion, and suppose that during, say, the next ensuing second of time, the separate fluid particles rearrange themselves by virtue of their respective orbital motions in such a manner that, at the end of that second, they constitute a curved line identical in shape and size with AB, and only |
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