tv Tomorrow Today Deutsche Welle July 1, 2019 9:30am-10:01am CEST
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hunger food security question marshall nicely. or not has been achieved so much more needs to be done and i think people have to be at the heart of solutions my name is on the top she and i work at g.w. . so. it's very. welcome to tamara today the side show on t w. this time we go to the beach where surfing physics teacher explains what waves are all about. we'll hear from an acoustics experts why the sound of waves is so relaxing. the waves can also have huge destructive power and scientists are trying to predict rogue waves.
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the old oceans are in constant motion waves poking at the surface of the water but ways are not equally high all over at the equator they tend to be more shallow at higher latitudes they're stronger. a wave can traverse entire oceans but it's not actually the water itself that is moving with the wave confusing let's head to the shore and find out about waves and where they come from. the atlantic coast of portugal and spain for its waves large and small 1st surfers of all novels of ability and as an enthusiastic wave rider he's also a physics teacher so he knows something about how waves form and what surfers find really epic a perfectly shaped long way. surfing requires practice and patience of all to build
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up the it's often just luck you have to be in the right place at the right time there are so many factors the height of the tide the when the wave period that play a role and sometimes there's just a tiny window maybe half an hour a day when you get good way and the rest is rubbish you know. this looks like a good moment. the surfing science teacher seizes the opportunity. but what power and waves exactly. waves are the transfer of energy. transfer and energy. so far today's waves have been pretty tame let's do an experiment on the beach and i ask a question it's astounding we can see how the wave is being propagated through the length of the cloth his shaking is providing the energy that's being transferred.
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but what does a wave in a towel have in common with a wave in the ocean. more than you might think. whether it's a towel wave or a water wave bit of the waves transport energy not matter. even though that might not be obvious as seen from the beach the water is just the transport medium. just like the surfers waiting on their boards the molecules in the water don't move over great distances the wave propagates much faster so it is the energy in waves come from it. it depends on what kind of points we're talking about. the moon this gravitational force keeps the ocean in motion. its attraction produces the rising and falling sea levels known as ebb and flow.
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but the waves that interest servers are generated by the wind what matters is how strongly and how long it loads it gets the water particles moving. here's a simulation the hairdryer makes a wind which makes waves. planes can travel for days and hundreds of kilometers from their place of origin in the middle of the ocean to the coast. long and shallow waves tend to travel faster than the short haile ones which slow themselves down. within the waves water particles follow circular or orbital paths. that this orbital movement extends deep down in the water the deeper the water the smaller the radius of the circular motion but when to circle in the water particles hit the seabed they're stopped and then. that makes shallower water waves.
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breakers are typical shallow water waves. they occur when the water particles below the surface are slowed at the bottom of the particles above continue to move on their circular patterns unhindered to. be unchecked water particles move upward making the wave tower up at the shore and then break. to the delight of the surfers. ya block out so it makes you happy it's very exhausting by night time you are totally knocked out but happy you forget all the everyday stresses. it's just great. but the best brains don't come on demand
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which is why this evening until yes he is still in the water waiting for that perfect wave. but waits can also be scary in the past sail is reported towering waves that suddenly a rose out of nowhere on the open ocean but scientists dismissed these accounts until the mid 990 s. that is when a so-called rogue wave was documented on an oil rig in the north sea. this freak wave measured 25 metres in height. now researchers are trying to understand and recreate these monsters. in the ocean waves that are between 8 and 10 meters high are commonplace but at any given time anywhere in the world there are likely to be 10 also rogue waves up to
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30 metres in height. they appear suddenly and without warning. scientists recreate rogue waves here in the wave basin of the new push concious institute in hanover here the water isn't whipped up by storms or currents the waves are generated by v's panels which are controlled by a computer. they enable the scientists to simulate nearly every kind of wave at a scale of $1.00 to $75.00 everything from small harmless ocean swells to gigantic monster waves the wave me to shows the current heights of the way. up and is going to simulate the drought in a way the 1st rogue wave ever documented is was measured on always drop an oil rig in 1905 i did not say she can see it clearly in this north sea story it shows 8 to 10 meter high waves on average during the storm. and here we see an extreme of that
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a wave that's 25 meters high a rogue wave monster. what's unique about rogue waves is that they're $2.00 to $3.00 times higher than the highest waves around them. that also makes them $2.00 to $3.00 times as steep. as a rogue wave has almost 10 times as much force as a normal way. for a long time it was a mystery how a wave more than 20 metres high could suddenly arise in a storm of 8 metre high waves i don't need to famished shortly thereafter. the explanation waves don't spread out equally in the water waves with shorter wavelengths in which the troughs and crests quickly follow each other only move relatively slowly. waves with long wave lengths are faster. they can catch up with shorter ones. when that happens they can combine to create
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a higher way. if several waves join together in this way they can become a rogue wave. broke waves are extremely steep a ship has no chance of sailing over the crest of a rogue wave as it can with an ordinary one instead the water crashes over it. the water masses collide with the structures on deck with tremendous force in a real scenario at sea this would break the ship's windows and bend heavy steel elements. scientists can simulate monster waves in a laboratory but what they really want to know is under what conditions and how often such waves will occur in nature. what is the likelihood of a freak wave forming. previous
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estimates had suggested that the probability of finding a way higher than 10 meters in a heavy storm would only be 0.03 percent. the measurements show that giant waves occur much more frequently the actual chance of waves forming that are at least 10 meters high is closer to one percent. and that's the classical approach adheres to the theory that every wave has a certain energy that the energy of one wave can sometimes overlay that of another to form a particularly high wave and that the component waves each with their own energy can thereafter continue on their way for. newer approaches theorize that energy can also be transferred from one wave to another and that this 2nd wave moves on with
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somewhat more energy and the 1st one was somewhat less that was when you can. see the waves would take on energy from their neighbors and grow at their expense into rogue waves that can endanger even big ships at sea. this is not a rogue wave but it's an army tsunamis are not generated by wind at the surface but on the sea bed usually by earthquakes when tectonic plates colline releasing massive amounts of energy and displacing huge volumes of water. are at it seats anomalies are still relatively small waves travelling phone asked. but when they reach the shore they slow and the water piles up into towering waves dozens of meters high which can destroy everything in their path.
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waves aren't only powerful they're also pretty loud. they can go up to 100 decibels that's as noisy as a jackhammer at 10 meters away. the sound is generated when the waves break but despite the volume the sound of waves is generally perceived as relaxing. that. waves break on the shore it day and night and have been doing so for millions of years. nobody seems to mind the noise in fact most really enjoy the sound why is that. if anyone knows the answer then scientists at the frown hole for institute for building physics based in stuttgart germany. this is
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our echo chamber will use it to test absorbers. peter punched ed and his colleagues research how people experience the sounds that surround them the field is called psychoacoustics they also develop products. here they're working on a booth with sound absorbing properties where one can conduct private conversations without being overheard. this chamber is anechoic that is totally soundproof it's used to test things but it's not actually pleasant to spend time man. this is to lecture and it's perhaps rather too quiet we're not built to hear nothing at all. we can't close our ears in contrast to our eyes our ears our original vigilance system warning us of dangers seen our hearing is always switched on designed to receive signals and issue warnings to protect us from harm seeking.
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to violently supervise and. this kind of sound is better than silence if we want to relax. just like. that has to do with the structure of waves. it's not a uniform constance noise with the same volume but rather it rises and recedes regularly it's. like the surging is a very relaxing kind of sound for us very familiar and with positive associations. for being. a prostitution a city at your own and white pink and brown noise are characterized by equal intensity at different frequencies the sound of waves exemplifies that when you give voice to and seek interest in your dog the sounds of produced as water slaps
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on the water and displaces ever had went out without movement there would be no noise machine or new vehicle our kind toward. people like certain kinds of sound with or without ocean waves technically generated white noise is sometimes even deployed in workplaces it can disguise other sounds. and it can be soothing. option and see this kind of noise doesn't carry information so after a while our brains infer that they don't need to do anything until in the noise out all register it's subliminally when feud so that's why it feels relaxing. by listening it's not real silence there is something there but it's not threatening his take it's not telling us anything so we can just relax your attitude as who in synch by 2. waves might still primal anxiety and let us
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sleep easy but what if the ocean is far away. is highway noise and effective substitute. is one for. traffic noise isn't all that different when the vehicles are just passing by at a constant speed and not starting and stopping. the sound is continuous over time and have a constant volume because the cars are driving at around the same speed. so in a sense listening to a highway should be a good long or by except our brains link the sounds to the cause of them and the associations are anything but mellow traffic speed concentration stress i. the sound of waves by contrast feels friendly reminds us of the cation
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or allows our minds to simply go blank. we are just on facebook what you think of when you hear the sound of waves. mirer from venezuela loves the sound of waves and says nothing is more relaxing than the sea and its waves. and he writes from indonesia that the sea is amazing almost alive it's always rippling sometimes slowly sometimes strongly and sometimes it's terrifying. for pius the sound of waves is very familiar he wrote to us in peace what healy that he's a skilled swimmer and that's what he knows. and the water from indonesia is more interested in the ocean waves as a source of energy and says we might be able to use them to replace fossil fuels and that's true. there have been many attempts to use the forces in the
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ocean waves to generate electricity we've been successful with other forces of nature so. power for example is most advanced in china india and japan according to the international renewable energy agency. other countries are focusing on wind and then. here to china is in 1st place but it's proven fairly difficult to harness the energy of waves. immensely powerful forces. huge wind generated waves. of the tides controlled by the moon's gravity. with an area of 360000000 square kilometers about 70 percent of the earth's surface is covered by water. most of it is in the oceans which could be
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a mark of source of climate friendly energy but how can we harness that power tidal amplitudes very dramatically around the globe and parts of western europe they're particularly pronounced. the 1st tide mills were built in the middle ages or even earlier they were driven by the daily changes in water levels. in the 1960 s. this idea was picked up again and engineers built the 1st big tidal power station in brittany and from. turbines inside the tarred liberace's are driven by the ebb and flow of the ocean. but the engineers encountered a problem only few things are suitable for this type of power plant and the barrage has also disrupt the coastal ecosystem. but that didn't stop them they saw other ways of using marine energy this time focusing on the strength of the waves. wind generated surface waves tend to be large and strong as high latitudes of the
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northern and southern hemispheres. it's not. and in the 1970 s. scientists developed a series of new mechanisms intended to convert the energy of surface waves into electricity many believe that wave energy converters were on the verge of a breakthrough. and one such device was called the salter's duck named after its inventor stephen salter from adam burke the duck was tested wave but never on the open sea. and sensually these ideas fell by the wayside. in the early 2000 came a new attempt with this snake like offshore device it's linked cylindrical sections flex and bend in the waves and convert the motion into electricity but it never got past the prototype stage. german engineers are currently testing another system the
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knee most project involves flotation modules connected to pulleys on the seabed by flexible cables as they're pulled by the motion of the waves a generator transforms the mechanical energy into electricity it's been tested as an addition to offshore wind farms. so far most of the approaches to topping marine power have got nowhere one reason the formidable technical hurdles. wave heights change continually does the force of the waves to stand up to the biggest waves the machinery has to be very robust but this equipment produces too little energy when waves are gentler there are many different ways of harnessing wave power but they're all still too expensive to be viable. and what about tidal energy developers shifted to encourage the turbines on the sea floor rather than in barrages what underwater repairs are expensive.
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places to plus i platforms have turbines mounted underneath that are more accessible and thus easier to. 6 when the corrosive salt water damages the machines . although the energy of the wild and salty seas has repeatedly proved difficult to harness many engineers remain optimistic that a breakthrough is just around the corner. if our plan is right why are they bad and even. now it's time for our viewer question this week it comes from morocco i took a look at the ways in the ocean and asked where the water is really transparent. the water in this class looks transparent. the ocean looks blue book both water on
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today so why the difference. to understand that we need to delve into physics color is an effect of light and without light everything turns black. the light from the sun may look white but it's actually a mixture of a range of wavelengths some of them are invisible to the human eye like ultraviolet rays other parts of the spectrum of visible to us and we see them as red orange yellow green blue violet. and when they're mixed together we can see the light as white. so why do different things have different colors. because they absorb different parts of the light spectrum the rest is reflected and picked up by the receptors in the eye of. the material the jacket is made of absorbs blue green and yellow light red like to be
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reflected so the jacket looks red. so what's going on with. close to the shore where the water is shallow or like mostly passes through without being absorbed or reflected. by the light rays fall on a larger body of water the red orange yellow components of the light are absorbed more strongly and the new light is preferentially reflected. so that's why the ocean looks blue it's not because it reflects the sky. divers can observe the effect of absorption as they descend into the depths 1st the red light disappears then the green and then the yellow what remains of blue light that hasn't been absorbed by the water further down that too is absorbed and you
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get to a point where no visible light at all has penetrated. so the color of the water seems to have depends on the quantity of it large volumes of water blue. a small amount of water appears transparent. you know the science question then just ask you'll find us at d w dot com slash science on twitter and facebook. here's a fun fact waves have a strong effect on animals and plants take the panicle you know there is little alfred pods that here to stones are shells and the boy said they rely on the waves to bring them to a new trance and the waves determine how long their penises are where the waves are strong monocles have a shorter penis when the flow is gentler it grows longer and in any case melbourne
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this measure to tell us about. let's ask her the boat's experience a modern museum center with her locomotion cultural heritage foundation moment researchers are looking for answers in more than 5000000 checks each object relates part of the history of mankind to. the persian cultural heritage foundation common structure in 75 w.
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. i was 15 when i arrived here i slept with people in a room for the 9th in. the. it was hard i was fair. i even got white hairs that. learning that shit new language and not enough this gives me a little push to make it to instruct the flavor you want to know their story in the lights her fighting and reliable information for margaret. and i'm. told. by a. it's been 15 years since the moon landing. she was the 1st man to walk on the moon . and on our planet. as a small boy she dreamed of the stars. as
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