"And the only way to enter is by leaping off that slab of concrete and hoping you don't get smashed between sets of waves".
Surfers find plenty of time for talk while driving in search of good spots, while changing into and out of wetsuits in the parking lot, and especially while waiting between sets of waves.
Under a bright blue sky, the art lovers were flitting from the Tate to the Barbara Hepworth museum while the surfers jogged towards tempting sets of waves rolling on to Porthmeor Beach.
When the rotating beam pointed east, the two sets of waves were out of phase by 90° (one quarter of a wavelength); when the beam pointed south, the phase difference was 180°; and so on.
Beyond them on the beach, lazy sets of waves crash into sand, then glint and foam: the radiant soda of the seashore, as Delmore Schwartz called it in his poem "Far Rockaway".
Smaller sets of waves formed parts of larger waves.
Galileo's November 1996 observations are consistent with wavelengths of 1920 ± 150 and, and vertical amplitudes of 2.4 ± 0.7 and, for the larger and smaller sets of waves, respectively.
But since the bottom-reflected waves travelled a little further – controlled by the thickness and refractive index of the film, and the angle at which the light fell – the two sets of waves are out of phase.
Just because there's a set coming in, doesn't mean you have to paddle out right away! Often it's better to wait for the "lull" between sets of waves.
A complete set of wave functions is used in terms of Bessel and Hankel radial functions.
