Re: the Kelvin Wake again

[John Mallinckrodt <ajmallinckro@CSUPOMONA.EDU>]

On Tue, 30 May 2000, Leigh Palmer wrote:

> I have now looked up the result in a book. The opening
> angle of the wavelet fronts is 109.5 degrees, independent
> of boat velocity. The book, "Bores, Breakers, Waves, and
> Wakes" by R. A. R. Tricker, first published in 1964 by
> Mills & Boon Limited, London, has a very clear derivation
> which should be quite accessible to brighter IB students.
> The downside is that the book itself is not very
> accessible. I couldn't find it at six booksellers' web
> sites that I tried.

On the topic of derivations of the Kelvin wake pattern: One of my all time
favorite physics articles is Frank Crawford's, "Elementary derivation of
the wake pattern of a boat," Am. J. Phys., Vol.  52, No. 9, September
1984, Pages 782 - 785.  Very clean, very brief, very accessible, and
packed with physics.

John Mallinckrodt      mailto:ajm@csupomona.edu
Cal Poly Pomona          http://www.csupomona.edu/~ajm