Talk:Dispersion (water waves)

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Could someone please explain the dispersion relation, and what the hyperbolic tangent "means." thanks you.

[edit] Eh?

Phase vocoder links here (via the disambiguation page). As this is therefore a topic of potential interest to musicians, it would be helpful if a summary could be prepended to it that musicians (and bass players) can comprehend. Ireneshusband 03:46, 17 June 2006 (UTC)


This article should not link here, as the application of dispersion to water waves is not relevant to music. candlefrontin17 —Preceding comment was added at 16:46, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] approximation

why is the approximate dispersion relation w^2 = gh. is that even a dispersion relation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.39.210.93 (talk • contribs) 23:08, 31 October 2007

For shallow water (small kh), the approximation is ω2=gh k2, since tanh(kh) is approximately kh in this limit. So shallow water waves are not dispersive, according to linear theory. For fairly long waves, the Boussinesq approximation can be made, taking dispersive effects into account. Crowsnest (talk) 18:33, 20 March 2008 (UTC)