size of the wave or motion of the ocean?
493808
It's a mixture of both!\n\nIf your small you can't do anything for me, but if you're too big....where am I going to put it?\n\nI need a perfect fit with a little extra. \n\nAnd for all that it's worth, atleast know how to work it.\n\nIf you are either too big or too small....your tongue can take up the slack!!
1085921
Wave motion is defined as the movement of a distortion of a material or medium, where the individual parts or elements of the material only move back-and-forth, up-and-down, or in a cyclical pattern.\n\nIt appears as if something is actually moving along the material, but in reality it is just the distortion moving, where one part influences the next.
452913
You could place a vertical rod in the pond (on a stand or stuck in the mud?) and start the experiment when the rod is dry.  After you create the wave and the surface returns to rest, measure the height of the wave on the rod.  This will be the maximum height of the waves at the given point and will depend on the location of the disturbance (radiates outwards like a bullseye?).  Also, there should be nothing near the rod to magnify the wave (including shore effect or irregular bottom?).  Applying chalk to the rod (especially blue chalk?) may make the wetted height more visible and resist drying too fast.  Including a scale on the rod may allow you to read the wetted height above calm surface easier, especially using binoculars.  The trough should approximately equal the wave height.  Good luck.
436755
When you see the waves coming at you on a beach, they really did not begin that way. Small disturbances far from where you are observing the waves accumulate and thus form a giant wave which you get to see. The waves are a set distance apart because when two waves interfere, there paths are not changed and the resultant wave is the addition of the two waves. So say there are two waves which meet and come at you, and then there are another 2 waves which meet at some distance d from the first two, and they come at you and the distance doesn't change between the two resultants because that's the property of a resultant wave. Similarly you see many such resultants coming at you with a set distance between them.
542089
Facts about the Oceans\nArea: about 140 million square miles (362 million sq km), ore nearly 71% of the Earth's surface.\n\nAverage Depth: 12,200 feet (3,720 m).\n\nDeepest point: 36,198 feet (11,033 m) in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific.\n\nMountains: The ocean ridges form a great mountain range, almost 40,000 miles (64,000 km) long, that weaves its way through all the major oceans. It is the largest single feature on Earth.\n\nHighest Mountain: Mauna Kea, Hawaii, rises 33,474 feet (10,203 m) from its base on the ocean floor; only 13,680 feet (4,170 m) are above sea level.
680484
The oceans are divided into two main zones: the pelagic and the benthic zones. The pelagic, the uppermost zone, is further divided into the euphotic or sunlit zone up to 660 feet, the dysphotic or twilight zone up to 3,300 feet, and the aphotic or midnight zone up to 20,000 feet.
939597
measure the distance between the beginning of the positive transition to the end of the negative transition.\nThis will be the wave length.
437661
This requires the use of doppler shift formula for a moving source and stationary observer:\n\nf = f0 ( v / ( v + u ) )\n\nf0 = actual frequency = 5\nv = speed of wave = 20\nu = relative velocity of source away from observer = -10\n(since travelling toward)\n\nf = observed frequency = 10 Hz\n\nNow velocity = v = fl = frequency * wavelength\n\nso wavlength l = v / f = 20 / 10 = 2m
35164
The waves taht you see created on a larger body of water such as a lake or an ocean are largely created as a result of wind acting upon the surface of the water.   There are three components that determine how big the waves become, they are fetch, intensity and duration.\n  Fetch is the available surface area presented to the wind.  A larger body of water will have a larger fetch area, allowing for the wind to develop its effects on the surface.  Thus a larger body of water will typically have larger waves.\n  Intensity is how hard the wind is blowing.  Stronger winds make bigger waves.\n  Duration is how long the wind has been acting on the water's surface.  A quick breeze may cause the surface to ripple, but it takes time and a more prolonged wind to start developing the larger waves that most people are accustomed to seeing on the ocean.\n\nSo, with a river, there are indeed waves, but just not as large as a big lake or the ocean because there just isn't enough fetch to build big waves.  One some large rivers (such as the Mississippi) there are wider areas, sometimes more than a mile wide.  In these sections of a river, it is not uncommon to get waves up to several feet in height on a windy day.
919914
Waves are formed in three ways, gravity, wind and earthquakes. Gravity is responsible for the high and low tides. High tide is when the water is the deepest and low tide is when the water is most shallow. The rise and fall of the water level causes waves to form.\n\nThe second cause of waves is wind. The wind can be light and only cause small waves. These waves can be as tiny as ripples in the water. Young children can practice making waves by blowing on a bowl full of water.\n\nWind can also cause very large waves that make being in the water very dangerous. Even large ships don't want to be caught in a storm with huge waves.\n\nThe type of wave wind causes depends on how hard the wind is blowing, how long the wind blows and how much ocean the wind blows over.\n\nLastly, waves can be caused by earthquakes. Earthquakes are the result of two of the earth's plates rubbing together. Just as we stumble or fall during an earthquake, water also reacts to the power force. The earthquake pushes the water away from the epicenter of the quake and can cause some pretty large waves.
100670
I don't think it really matters either way if you know what you are doing with it, as I've said before It's not the size of the ship that matters, but the motion of the ocean
800048
Actually, the largest sea in the world is the South China Sea.\n\nThe South China Sea is roughly 3,500,000 square km while the Mediterranean is only 2,510,000 square km.
140528
Not big enough, when compared to the ocean :(
457019
Also depends on your scale. At microscopic scales, a strings length is fractal, and thereby infinite.\n\nJust think of measuring a coastline length at a microscopic scale.
387651
Tsunamis fall into a wave physics category called long waves, also known as shallow water waves.  This type of wave is characterized by a wavelength that is much larger than the water depth.  In the case of tsunamis, their wavelength might be 500 km versus, for example, a 4 km ocean depth, so even though 4 km is "deep", the waves are technically "shallow water waves".\n\nAccording to the sources I have included below, the velocity of shallow water waves does in fact vary according to the water depth.  According to the NOAA site, "The speed of a shallow-water wave is equal to the square root of the product of the acceleration of gravity (32ft/sec/sec or 980cm/sec/sec) and the depth of the water."  Therefore, the longer the wavelength, the faster the wave.  Since tsunamis have very large wavelengths, their speed is large.\n\nThe ripples on a pond that we're all so familiar with are technically short waves, or deep water waves, because the wavelength of the waves is not substantially larger than the depth of the water.  In this situation, the wave velocity is relatively constant for the wavelengths we typically see on the surface of a pond or bathtub, but according to the sources below, the wave speed does in fact vary according to the wavelength of the waves.\n\nYou are correct that the speed of a wave is constant in a given medium.  However, as you suspected after you lost the bet, tsunamis and ripples are effectively traveling through different media because of the ratio of their wavelengths to the water depth.
633567
lets break it down mathematically\n\nthe mass of the @ss+the heat of the meat= the motion of the ocean
204545
I'm assuming you're asking about tectonic plate movement and not heavier stuff like the earth tilting on its axis. The first link shows a map of the earth currently and how it's moving so you can figure it out on your own.  The second link gives your the answer to your question.  It shows the Pacific Ocean getting much narrower.