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How Rogue Waves Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you should know from house Stuff
0:04
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
0:13
Speaker 1: Joshua Clark. There's Charles Bryant, There's Jerome Rowland. All of
0:18
Speaker 1: us full first names only for this episode. That's right.
0:22
Speaker 1: I love calling Jerry Jerome. I don't know when that started,
0:25
Speaker 1: but it's one of my favorite nicknames. Jero Mina, yeah,
0:30
Speaker 1: Jairs called her Jairs a lot too, and just Jiff. Yeah.
0:35
Speaker 1: What I typically do for nicknames is take the last
0:37
Speaker 1: name and half it and add an s if it's workable,
0:41
Speaker 1: like Kristen Congers, Congs or Stricks. For Strickland, I just
0:46
Speaker 1: call him strick. Yeah. Strick is good too, but rolls
0:51
Speaker 1: Rowls doesn't really work. Chairs is good, and that's called
0:57
Speaker 1: the nickname show. Yeah. Man, When I was listening to
1:02
Speaker 1: um oh, I can't remember what episode it was. Wow,
1:07
Speaker 1: this is almost not worth mentioning anyway. We're being very silly.
1:12
Speaker 1: I guess that was currency. It was a very silly episode,
1:15
Speaker 1: like we just were not going to take it seriously.
1:18
Speaker 1: It didn't matter how much anybody wanted us to. Well,
1:20
Speaker 1: that's because we had a tank of laughing gas here.
1:22
Speaker 1: And oh that was that I got you, so, Chuck,
1:27
Speaker 1: I have a question for you. Have you ever been
1:30
Speaker 1: to see once on the Maximum Cruise. That's the first
1:35
Speaker 1: time I've ever been out to see like legite man.
1:40
Speaker 1: It's a weird sensation, huh. Like it is different than
1:42
Speaker 1: I especially when you can see, you know, how deep
1:46
Speaker 1: it is, like on the TVs or whatever, they'll tell
1:48
Speaker 1: you how deep you're you are at any time, and
1:50
Speaker 1: you just think like, oh my god, there's like three
1:52
Speaker 1: thousand feet of water beneath me and nothing around me.
1:57
Speaker 1: It is a little creepy, it is, But it's a
1:58
Speaker 1: neat sensation too, agreed. Um, well, I take it from
2:03
Speaker 1: the fact that you didn't mention it, because I would
2:05
Speaker 1: think that you have mentioned it unsolicitedly. You didn't encounter
2:09
Speaker 1: a rogue wave, No, I would have mentioned that. I
2:12
Speaker 1: would think that it was very calm seas of course, Um,
2:16
Speaker 1: I didn't even get sea sick. Oh yeah, I have to.
2:19
Speaker 1: I have to tell everybody this. So you may find
2:21
Speaker 1: these things called C bands? Did you use those? I
2:24
Speaker 1: took one, but I didn't need it. We wore them
2:26
Speaker 1: almost all the time, and I have to say, and
2:28
Speaker 1: I when I didn't have it on I could tell like,
2:31
Speaker 1: I don't feel so hot. Put it on, Like five
2:34
Speaker 1: minutes later, I was totally normal. It was amazing. Yeah,
2:37
Speaker 1: I didn't have any seasickness. That was the occasional like, uh,
2:40
Speaker 1: the boat would move a little and be like, how
2:42
Speaker 1: many drinks have I had? But then I would remember, Oh,
2:45
Speaker 1: I'm not in a hotel, I'm in a floating hotel.
2:47
Speaker 1: Plus I had a ton of drinks. Yeah, exactly. Uh. Yeah,
2:51
Speaker 1: No rogue waves though, no road waves for us either. Um,
2:55
Speaker 1: because they're rare. I don't know about that. They're pretty rare.
2:59
Speaker 1: I guess if you compare it to the normal number
3:02
Speaker 1: of waves. Yeah, they're rare, that's what you have to
3:04
Speaker 1: compare it to, right, But they're a lot less rare
3:07
Speaker 1: than than scientists thought they were even just a couple
3:10
Speaker 1: of decades ago. Yeah, that's true. So, um, when we
3:13
Speaker 1: say rogue waves, depending on where you live in the world,
3:16
Speaker 1: you might say, what is a rogue wave? All I've
3:18
Speaker 1: ever heard of is a freak wave, Or if you
3:21
Speaker 1: live in another part of the world, you might have
3:23
Speaker 1: heard them called killer waves. Or if you're a fan
3:27
Speaker 1: of the band rogue Wave me, you might just think
3:30
Speaker 1: it's music you could that's pleasing to your ear right,
3:34
Speaker 1: That's not what we're talking about this time. No, I
3:36
Speaker 1: just wanted to give a shout out to the Roadway
3:38
Speaker 1: they happened to listen. I love those guys. They have
3:41
Speaker 1: a great documentary on Actually their drummer almost died from
3:45
Speaker 1: a bad kidney and PBS to this really good documentary
3:49
Speaker 1: on Um you know how a like a guy in
3:52
Speaker 1: a small indie band gets a new kidney and affords
3:55
Speaker 1: a new kidney. It was really great. It's called My
3:57
Speaker 1: Ache and Kidney, And you know, I can't remember what
3:59
Speaker 1: it was all now so out a few years ago,
4:01
Speaker 1: but they're great. My left kidney Zach Rogue is the
4:03
Speaker 1: name of the lead guy that explains the band's name. Yeah, exactly,
4:07
Speaker 1: and I think it was his right kidney man, although
4:12
Speaker 1: it might be wrong. Oh so with Rogue waves, not
4:16
Speaker 1: the band, the actual wave. Um there it's I guess,
4:22
Speaker 1: just to define it very briefly, a road wave is
4:24
Speaker 1: a huge, colossal wave that is, in most definitions, twice
4:31
Speaker 1: the size of the next tallest wave in given area.
4:35
Speaker 1: That's like basically described as a wall of water, because
4:39
Speaker 1: if you're out in the open ocean like you, you're
4:42
Speaker 1: normally encountering swells, like the waves are rounded, so boat
4:47
Speaker 1: can just kind of float up and down on them,
4:49
Speaker 1: even if they are huge. Yeah. Well yeah, and you
4:51
Speaker 1: gotta know what you're doing, you know, in those kind
4:53
Speaker 1: of ways. You gotta drive into it, the steer into
4:55
Speaker 1: it the right way and all that stuff. Right, But
4:56
Speaker 1: if your ship's captain, you know what you're doing better. Um,
5:00
Speaker 1: the rogue wave, you're in trouble because it is again,
5:03
Speaker 1: it's like a wall of water, so it's much steeper,
5:05
Speaker 1: much flatter, and when it encounters a boat, it doesn't
5:08
Speaker 1: go under the boat. It goes over the boat, it
5:11
Speaker 1: breaks on top of it and contin some serious damage.
5:14
Speaker 1: Because these things are enormous. Yeah, And the key to
5:17
Speaker 1: being a rogue wave is right there in the name.
5:19
Speaker 1: It's rogue. It is, uh, it is even if there's
5:23
Speaker 1: a bad storm. It is not like the other waves
5:25
Speaker 1: you're encountering, and they come out of seemingly come out
5:28
Speaker 1: of nowhere. That which is why they've never been able
5:31
Speaker 1: to photograph or to chart them from beginning to end,
5:34
Speaker 1: because they you can't predict them. It's not like, well,
5:37
Speaker 1: there's a road wave coming. They just happen, and all
5:39
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you're like, oh crap, right, let me
5:42
Speaker 1: get this boat steered directly, and I hope it doesn't
5:45
Speaker 1: break my ship in half, right, And and like you
5:47
Speaker 1: qualified it that nobody has a photograph of it forming
5:51
Speaker 1: or a video of it forming, Like there are a
5:54
Speaker 1: few photos here there, And I think there's some documentary
5:57
Speaker 1: evidence from like, um, uh one of those Discovery shows. Yeah,
6:01
Speaker 1: there was one on Deadliest Catch, but I think they've
6:03
Speaker 1: never scientifically recorded like from beginning to end right exactly,
6:07
Speaker 1: so no one knows where where they come from, like
6:10
Speaker 1: you say. And there's some pretty cool theories, but um,
6:14
Speaker 1: I think you have to kind of differentiate them because
6:16
Speaker 1: people are saying at this point, well, dummies, um, underwater
6:20
Speaker 1: earthquakes cause rogue waves. Bam, it's done. That's right. Okay,
6:25
Speaker 1: what about glacial calving? You drop a huge piece of
6:28
Speaker 1: glacier into the water, creates a giant wave, rogue wave?
6:33
Speaker 1: All right? What about coastal landslides? Okay, what's the problem here? Well, those,
6:43
Speaker 1: my friend, thank you for playing along in our little
6:45
Speaker 1: silly game. Uh, those all can cause huge waves. And
6:48
Speaker 1: some people might say, well the rogue but Um, they're
6:52
Speaker 1: really not know they're rogan that there. Yeah, it's a
6:55
Speaker 1: huge wave that's much bigger than all the other waves
6:57
Speaker 1: around it. They're not rogue because we know where they
7:01
Speaker 1: came from exactly, we know who their parents are. Right
7:04
Speaker 1: with a rogue wave, Um, again, it just kind of
7:08
Speaker 1: comes out of nowhere. Like you said, it can be
7:10
Speaker 1: even in a storm. They're much bigger than the other
7:12
Speaker 1: huge waves. But they can also just be an enormous
7:14
Speaker 1: wave in totally calm seas, which makes them extremely mysterious. Yeah,
7:19
Speaker 1: and it depends on who you ask. There's no strict
7:22
Speaker 1: definition of how much larger it has to be. I've
7:24
Speaker 1: seen everything from thirty three to three times as big
7:28
Speaker 1: as the next highest waves, So there isn't, like, you know,
7:32
Speaker 1: a rank and file definition of how big it needs
7:34
Speaker 1: to be. But um, they've chartered some charted some big ones. Uh.
7:39
Speaker 1: In February of two thousand, this is what I found
7:42
Speaker 1: is the largest ever recorded wave by science. It was
7:45
Speaker 1: off the coast of Scotland, recorded at um. It was
7:49
Speaker 1: a British research vessel and that was using scientific instrumentation.
7:55
Speaker 1: But there are tons of anecdotal stories. In fact, the
7:59
Speaker 1: if you're a seaman then you are. You probably have
8:03
Speaker 1: one of your own or heard a million of them. Um.
8:06
Speaker 1: You know, sailors are renowned for their stories, but ruge
8:09
Speaker 1: waves really kind of like they they're the big bang stories.
8:13
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, it's kind of um. You know a
8:17
Speaker 1: lot of people said, oh, there's such thing as navy's
8:19
Speaker 1: strength gin, so are you sure you know what you're
8:21
Speaker 1: talking about? But every once in a while, the ship
8:23
Speaker 1: would come limping back into port and you know, it's
8:26
Speaker 1: radar in Tenna would be snapped off even though it
8:29
Speaker 1: was like ninety ft above water, and they would say
8:32
Speaker 1: it was a wave, and the captain would be a
8:35
Speaker 1: known sober teetotaler who had no reason to lie. And um,
8:40
Speaker 1: they would say, okay, maybe there is such thing as
8:42
Speaker 1: rogue waves. But it wasn't until the first one was
8:46
Speaker 1: recorded scientifically. That's right. Uh, and you know what, let's
8:50
Speaker 1: talk about that right after this message, so chuck, like
8:56
Speaker 1: we said, um, rogue waves were considered sailors lower as
9:00
Speaker 1: far as science went, until on New Year's Day, off
9:05
Speaker 1: the coast of Norway, I believe there was an oil
9:07
Speaker 1: platform called the drop Ner platform, and it just happened
9:11
Speaker 1: to be recording waves that day, and it was recording
9:15
Speaker 1: waves that were about sixteen to twenty three ft high
9:19
Speaker 1: about five to seven ms, which I mean, like that's
9:21
Speaker 1: pretty respectable, fear surfer, you probably want to get it
9:24
Speaker 1: out on that, you know. But then all of a
9:27
Speaker 1: sudden one passed by, and just one that was sixty
9:30
Speaker 1: six ft tall, and it was out of nowhere, and
9:34
Speaker 1: there was nothing else that came after it, and there
9:36
Speaker 1: was nothing before it. And they figured out that they
9:38
Speaker 1: had just recorded the first rogue wave ever captured by science.
9:45
Speaker 1: It is pretty crazy, but this is kind of um
9:49
Speaker 1: coming after things like we said, like anecdotal evidence, like
9:51
Speaker 1: there was one from the Qiwi two. I believe the captain, Um,
9:57
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what year it was, but the captain described,
10:01
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, this rogue wave comes out, and
10:03
Speaker 1: he said it was it looked as though the ship
10:05
Speaker 1: was heading straight for the White White Cliffs of Dover,
10:09
Speaker 1: which has to be kind of scary. Yeah, I imagine. So. Uh.
10:13
Speaker 1: The Queen Elizabeth one as well, the RMS Queen Elizabeth
10:18
Speaker 1: more specifically was in World War Two, the Gray Ghost
10:21
Speaker 1: was converted to a to a military ship to carry
10:26
Speaker 1: troops basically and could carry up to sixteen thousand men um,
10:30
Speaker 1: which is staggering at thirty knots, which is very handy.
10:34
Speaker 1: But um, a rogue wave struck that ship near Greenland,
10:38
Speaker 1: Ino and supposedly shattered windows ninety feet above the waterline.
10:43
Speaker 1: But she survived because I saw cat Power play on
10:46
Speaker 1: that ship. That was the ship, huh, yeah, there was.
10:49
Speaker 1: It's been docked in Long Beach since the sixties. And
10:53
Speaker 1: UM I went to the Alt Tomorrow Parties festival there
10:55
Speaker 1: by the water and it was mainly like the big stage,
10:59
Speaker 1: but they had a second stage set up on the
11:00
Speaker 1: Queen Elizabeth, which is really neat and um I walked
11:04
Speaker 1: in and saw cap Power played for like twenty minutes
11:06
Speaker 1: before I went back out to the main stage. You know, um,
11:08
Speaker 1: the neat venue motor Head is has the cruise going
11:12
Speaker 1: on really coming soon, I think this month in September. Wow,
11:17
Speaker 1: that would be pretty awesome. That would be awesome. U.
11:19
Speaker 1: The QI though is, um you can stay it's like
11:22
Speaker 1: a hotel now, yeah, so you can stay there and
11:24
Speaker 1: eat there and see cat Power there. That's also haunted,
11:27
Speaker 1: I'm sure. Well her performance was haunting, so so there
11:33
Speaker 1: was a there there's all of these sailors coming back
11:37
Speaker 1: saying this way was crazy, and everybody saying, no, you're
11:40
Speaker 1: the one who's crazy. But then after that capture UM,
11:44
Speaker 1: and they're saying, okay, there is such thing as rogue waves.
11:47
Speaker 1: And then for some reason the nineties were like a
11:50
Speaker 1: huge boom for capturing rogue waves, improving that there was
11:55
Speaker 1: not only did they exist, there was a lot more
11:58
Speaker 1: of them than they used to think. I think people
11:59
Speaker 1: were trying more, just like recording the more. And then
12:03
Speaker 1: they said, okay, we've we understand that there is such
12:06
Speaker 1: thing as rogue waves, but we have no idea how
12:09
Speaker 1: they formed. And so they started really kind of looking
12:12
Speaker 1: into what causes a rogue wave. Yeah, and if you
12:16
Speaker 1: guys have listened to our surfing episode, UM, which is
12:19
Speaker 1: pretty good, that's all right. But we got into the
12:22
Speaker 1: physics of a wave. Uh, and the highlights of that
12:25
Speaker 1: are this. Uh. If you're looking at a wave, the crest,
12:29
Speaker 1: as you know, is is the highest portion. The trough
12:31
Speaker 1: is the lowest portion. It's the dip in the between
12:35
Speaker 1: the waves. You have the waves height, which is the
12:37
Speaker 1: distance between the trough and the crest. The distance between
12:41
Speaker 1: the crest themselves is the length of the wave, and
12:45
Speaker 1: then the wave period or wave speed is the amount
12:48
Speaker 1: of time between one crest and the next. And then
12:51
Speaker 1: what's the last one there? Wave energy. Yeah, that's the
12:55
Speaker 1: kinetic and potential energy carried by the wave. Yes, and
12:58
Speaker 1: that is sourced from someone named land I see in
13:01
Speaker 1: the No, it's not me. So so you've got what
13:06
Speaker 1: you've just described as a wave. Like, if you have
13:08
Speaker 1: all of this information, you can mathematically describe any kind
13:12
Speaker 1: of wave. And it's not just um ocean waves too.
13:15
Speaker 1: Like this applies to optics, it applies to microwaves, it
13:20
Speaker 1: applies to all like anything that takes the form of
13:22
Speaker 1: a wave. Apparently even the stock market behaves as a wave.
13:27
Speaker 1: And a lot of this stuff applies to It applies
13:29
Speaker 1: to you and your break dancing. That's the worm in there.
13:34
Speaker 1: A wave too, Yeah, there's a wave, but I do
13:36
Speaker 1: the worm, that's my signature move. Or if you're a
13:39
Speaker 1: sports stadium and you and you're one of those people
13:42
Speaker 1: that participates in the wave doing the wave. Yeah, actually yeah,
13:45
Speaker 1: I'm sure that this stuff would apply as well. Um,
13:48
Speaker 1: but under normal circumstances with just a normal wave or something,
13:53
Speaker 1: if you're out on the ocean. There are hundreds or
13:55
Speaker 1: thousands of waves all around you at any given point
13:58
Speaker 1: in sure um and they're brought about by the movement
14:01
Speaker 1: of wind across water. And if there's a lot of
14:05
Speaker 1: unobstructed water, which is called fetch, that's apparently the amount
14:09
Speaker 1: of ocean that's unobstructed that the wind can blow across.
14:13
Speaker 1: And the wind is blowing strongly and it's keeping up
14:17
Speaker 1: its breath, then you're gonna have some waves form, and
14:22
Speaker 1: that's what forms a wave. Yeah, and there's you know,
14:24
Speaker 1: there's other things that can impact it. Wind is the
14:27
Speaker 1: major thing, but you know, the depth of the water
14:29
Speaker 1: at the time, tides and currents, uh, if there's an
14:33
Speaker 1: island or something in the way, that's all going to
14:36
Speaker 1: affect it. But that big open fetches where you're gonna
14:40
Speaker 1: get your big, big waves, right, And that's a just
14:42
Speaker 1: a normal wave. What they think, what I should say
14:45
Speaker 1: one of the main theories for what causes a rogue wave,
14:49
Speaker 1: because just these normal circumstances don't account for a rogue wave. Right.
14:55
Speaker 1: You can point to any normal wave and be like, yeah,
14:57
Speaker 1: it's it's wind over this fetch and boom, there's your
15:00
Speaker 1: there's your seven ft ocean wave right with a roade wave.
15:03
Speaker 1: That doesn't necessarily apply. So they think one of the
15:06
Speaker 1: proposed theories is that road waves form when you have
15:10
Speaker 1: a current going one way and good sized wave going
15:14
Speaker 1: the other way, say from a storm. The current pushes
15:19
Speaker 1: up the wave and basically transfers when they run into
15:22
Speaker 1: each other, it transfers some energy so that the wave
15:25
Speaker 1: just gets freakishly large for a minute, and then all
15:28
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you've got your rogue wave. Yeah. So
15:30
Speaker 1: like if you have a really bad storm and in
15:33
Speaker 1: a thirty foot wave and it hits something like the
15:37
Speaker 1: Gulf Stream, the Gulf Stream might pick it up and
15:40
Speaker 1: say I'm gonna make you larger. Yeah, because I'm the
15:42
Speaker 1: Gulf Stream, I'm gonna make you a stop. But they
15:45
Speaker 1: have definitely found more evidence of road waves in some
15:48
Speaker 1: of these currents, like the Gulf Stream on the east
15:51
Speaker 1: coast of the US or the one of the two
15:57
Speaker 1: that's a current on the southward east coast of Africa.
16:01
Speaker 1: They project with maths that you could get a wave
16:05
Speaker 1: of as big as a hundred ninetet um But I
16:09
Speaker 1: don't know, but they definitely have chartered um charted a
16:12
Speaker 1: lot more waves along those streams and uh and currents.
16:16
Speaker 1: And actually, if if it is true, if it does
16:19
Speaker 1: pan out that currents, strong currents with waves running opposite
16:23
Speaker 1: to them causes rogue waves, they're saying, well, then the
16:26
Speaker 1: Gulf stream would account for why the Bermuda Triangle has
16:30
Speaker 1: so many das disappearance disappearances. I don't know if we
16:33
Speaker 1: mentioned that, and I don't think we did. We did
16:35
Speaker 1: one on the Bermuda Triangle that I'm sure we said,
16:38
Speaker 1: like like they were just a wave that swallowed him,
16:41
Speaker 1: But I don't know if we may have said rogue waves.
16:43
Speaker 1: It didn't stick out to me as a thing until
16:45
Speaker 1: I ran across this article though. Plus that was like
16:47
Speaker 1: eighty years ago. It was a hundred years ago. There's
16:51
Speaker 1: another explanation to um and this is basically the foundation
16:58
Speaker 1: of a mathematical incipal called the Peregrine solaton like this one.
17:03
Speaker 1: So the Peregrine Solatan is named after a mathematician named Peregrine,
17:09
Speaker 1: and he in the eighties predicted rogue waves like he.
17:13
Speaker 1: He mathematically proved that they were possible and showed how
17:16
Speaker 1: they would form. Yes he Um, I can't remember his
17:22
Speaker 1: first name. Was so British, so before that it was
17:25
Speaker 1: just like stories, yes, and then this guy comes along
17:29
Speaker 1: and proves that that a road wave can occur, and
17:33
Speaker 1: he's also even more awesome. He's he it's not just again,
17:37
Speaker 1: it's not just limited to ocean waves. It's he's saying,
17:40
Speaker 1: you can have this in optics, which has been proven
17:42
Speaker 1: in the lab. You can have it on the ocean,
17:44
Speaker 1: which has been proven in the lab simulation. And basically
17:47
Speaker 1: the whole thing with the Peregrine Solatan is that you
17:50
Speaker 1: have a normal wave and if you add just a
17:53
Speaker 1: little bit of noise to these predictable um formations of
17:57
Speaker 1: a wave, you can have a freakishly large steep wave
18:02
Speaker 1: that comes and goes fairly quickly. And that's a Peregrine
18:06
Speaker 1: solitan And they they've since shown that these things can't exist. Um,
18:11
Speaker 1: but he predicted it in like the eighties, like a
18:14
Speaker 1: good ten years before a rogue wave was ever recorded scientifically. Uh,
18:18
Speaker 1: Professor Peregrine came up with it. They named the Falcon
18:22
Speaker 1: after him to probably right. Uh, Well, there's also the
18:26
Speaker 1: wave reinforcement. Well, this is their related is part of it. Yeah,
18:30
Speaker 1: So basically waves getting together and becoming one large wave. Yeah,
18:33
Speaker 1: so that noise that you add into the normal process
18:38
Speaker 1: in this case, the wave reinforcement that noise would come
18:40
Speaker 1: from other waves got you. So the idea is, if
18:43
Speaker 1: let's say you have a ten foot wave passing over
18:46
Speaker 1: a twenty ft wave, that's going to be a thirty
18:48
Speaker 1: ft wave. Yeah, that's so neat. Or it can go
18:50
Speaker 1: in the other direction, and I guess it just has
18:52
Speaker 1: depend depends on how they meet each other. You can
18:55
Speaker 1: also subtract it. Yeah, so like a trough, Yeah, that's
18:59
Speaker 1: between the crest than the lowest point of the wave.
19:02
Speaker 1: Right If if the trough is like ut and a
19:06
Speaker 1: twenty foot wave runs into that, it drops down and
19:09
Speaker 1: just becomes a five foot wave. Yeah. But even the
19:13
Speaker 1: basic addition and subtraction, which makes it really exciting to
19:16
Speaker 1: me because I understand that kind of thing, not me.
19:21
Speaker 1: Addition and subtraction very basic if I have a calculator.
19:24
Speaker 1: But but they're they're saying like, if you have say
19:27
Speaker 1: five waves or ten waves, that five ft high, and
19:32
Speaker 1: the five ft high is the normal average in the area.
19:35
Speaker 1: But they all just happened to get together at this
19:37
Speaker 1: right point, they're going to turn into a fifty ft wave,
19:40
Speaker 1: a single fifty ft wave, and all of a sudden
19:43
Speaker 1: you have a rogue wave that just kind of comes
19:45
Speaker 1: out of nowhere. Or if you're in a bad storm, um,
19:48
Speaker 1: just a couple of large waves can form something pretty
19:51
Speaker 1: intimidating very fast. So we'll talk about how common these
19:56
Speaker 1: things might be coming up after the Alright, so, uh,
20:10
Speaker 1: they used to think they weren't so common. And like
20:14
Speaker 1: we said earlier, just the lore of of the sailor
20:17
Speaker 1: Navy strength gin exactly what is navy string? Is that
20:20
Speaker 1: just like a higher proof Oh my goodness, is it good?
20:23
Speaker 1: It's too much to jinny, It's no, it just it
20:27
Speaker 1: destroys you. It's not good for you. I've never thought
20:30
Speaker 1: the high high proof alcohols like to me. Adding the
20:34
Speaker 1: extra just takes away from the flavor a little bit
20:38
Speaker 1: for me. You know, like that crazy rum that's like
20:42
Speaker 1: navy strength throw them. Yeah, I guess so it is.
20:45
Speaker 1: It's like firewater. Yeah, it's navy strength through them and
20:47
Speaker 1: Navy strength strength gin. It used to be part of
20:50
Speaker 1: the British Sailors rations. There's there's only one reason to
20:53
Speaker 1: drink that stuff. But I mean it went away for
20:55
Speaker 1: a reason and then they brought it back and it's
20:58
Speaker 1: it's just crazy stuff crazy. They brought it back for
21:01
Speaker 1: college students. I mean there's I can't remember who makes it.
21:05
Speaker 1: I think Leopolds might make a navy strength gin. Yeah,
21:10
Speaker 1: it's it's rough and I love Leopolds Jim, but there's
21:13
Speaker 1: any navy strength gin I think would just be too
21:15
Speaker 1: much for me. Yeah, you get at older and you're
21:17
Speaker 1: not impressed by that stuff, you know, like when you're
21:18
Speaker 1: in college though, that's when you're like, this is five
21:20
Speaker 1: thousand proof. We're going to put it in some kool aid,
21:24
Speaker 1: and none of us are going to remember tonight. Nobody
21:27
Speaker 1: better be putting Leopold's gin in kool aid. I will
21:30
Speaker 1: find you look to your nearest college campus because it's
21:34
Speaker 1: probably happening. Uh So, Anyway, like we said, they used
21:38
Speaker 1: to think they were pretty rare. But um in two
21:40
Speaker 1: thousand four, the European Space Agency started collecting data from
21:46
Speaker 1: satellites and they basically want to see, like how often
21:50
Speaker 1: do these occur? Uh I've seen some different estimates, from
21:54
Speaker 1: three and ten thousand in the ocean to three and
21:58
Speaker 1: one thousand near coastal inlets and river mouths. Um, but
22:02
Speaker 1: I think what they found with their max wave project
22:05
Speaker 1: was ten waves eight two ft are higher. And that's
22:08
Speaker 1: from the s AS data, right, And that was over
22:11
Speaker 1: a period of three weeks. But the thing is is
22:14
Speaker 1: the previous weather data collection predicted that you get one
22:20
Speaker 1: every like fifty years, and all of a sudden, they
22:23
Speaker 1: saw ten in three weeks. So they're like, Okay, these
22:25
Speaker 1: things are way more common than we we thought. And
22:29
Speaker 1: like I said, they started to think, well, maybe this
22:31
Speaker 1: accounts for a lot of disappearances. Yeah. One thing they're
22:34
Speaker 1: gonna try and do with another program called wave Atlas
22:37
Speaker 1: is do surveys over a longer period of time, which
22:40
Speaker 1: um makes a lot of sense, of course, because that
22:43
Speaker 1: could have been a really rough three weeks. Yes, again
22:46
Speaker 1: it could have. It's like I was looking into shipping
22:48
Speaker 1: containers because the rogue wave caused to the worst shipping
22:52
Speaker 1: container losses in recent history. Uh huh? Or rogue waves did?
22:56
Speaker 1: I should say it wasn't just one, um, And I
22:59
Speaker 1: should say it's not necessarily just one. Apparently mathematically, it's
23:04
Speaker 1: also predicted that rogue waves tend to occur in threes
23:08
Speaker 1: for some reason, and I couldn't find out why. UM.
23:11
Speaker 1: But they're They're like, if you look at the wreck
23:13
Speaker 1: of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The account of that um from
23:16
Speaker 1: the captain of the Arthur Anderson, which is the ship
23:19
Speaker 1: that was going along with Lake uh Herea. I think
23:24
Speaker 1: when it wasn't Superior Um. They were out in a
23:28
Speaker 1: storm in November and the Arthur Anderson was hit by
23:32
Speaker 1: two thirty five foot waves, which is huge for the
23:36
Speaker 1: Great Lakes, and they lost sight of the Edmund Fitzgerald
23:42
Speaker 1: and the next thing they know, it's on the bottom
23:44
Speaker 1: of the Lake Superior broken into and they were like, well,
23:48
Speaker 1: clearly the rogue wave took it down. But there were
23:50
Speaker 1: two of them that night, and apparently there are plenty
23:52
Speaker 1: of accounts of not just one, but more than one
23:55
Speaker 1: rogue wave coming out of the Blue Well. And we
23:58
Speaker 1: got a great song out of it, Gordon Lightfoot, the
24:02
Speaker 1: Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald. It's so odd that I
24:05
Speaker 1: guess that was just the time, but it seems weird
24:08
Speaker 1: that you get a big radio hit about a hip
24:11
Speaker 1: wreck that was when the AM stations dominated. Yeah, he's
24:17
Speaker 1: Canadian too, so that might explain a lot. I read
24:20
Speaker 1: a good article today on the lost art of the
24:22
Speaker 1: Fade out and songs. Oh yeah, it's pretty cool. Slight
24:26
Speaker 1: did a good article on it, and how you know,
24:28
Speaker 1: the biggest hits of the of the sixties and seventies
24:31
Speaker 1: and into the eighties even had those great fade outs
24:34
Speaker 1: you just you don't hear anymore. No. Well, one of
24:36
Speaker 1: the reasons why it's because it's so awkward to try
24:39
Speaker 1: to do that live. Like do you remember when Davy
24:41
Speaker 1: Jones guested on The Brady Bunch, Marcia was trying to
24:46
Speaker 1: get him to play the prom um He does the
24:49
Speaker 1: rendition of girl and then it fades out at the
24:52
Speaker 1: end while he's singing and he's like kind of singing
24:55
Speaker 1: like more softly. Well, that's because he's lived sinking to
24:57
Speaker 1: the recorded version, right, but I mean live, they would
25:01
Speaker 1: end them differently. Yeah, but he was supposedly in the
25:03
Speaker 1: studio and it's like fading as he's recording. It was
25:06
Speaker 1: just awkward to see and you could tell he felt uncomfortable.
25:09
Speaker 1: It's very awkward. Uh So, I think one of the
25:13
Speaker 1: last things we should cover is the differentiation between a
25:16
Speaker 1: rogue wave and a tsunami. We've done a podcast on
25:20
Speaker 1: tsunamis and the main differences is where it comes from
25:26
Speaker 1: and where it happens. Uh. Tsunami's aren't typically a ninety
25:32
Speaker 1: foot wall of water. A lot of times it's a
25:34
Speaker 1: five foot wall of water that just has such force
25:38
Speaker 1: and speed coming ashore that it does all kinds of damage. Well, yeah,
25:42
Speaker 1: depending on when where you see it. Because the rather
25:46
Speaker 1: than a wave like a normal wave, UM, where the
25:49
Speaker 1: energy is carried on top of the water because the
25:51
Speaker 1: wind whipped it up there, the tsunami is generated underwater,
25:55
Speaker 1: so the energy carries beneath the water. So when it
25:58
Speaker 1: hits that coast, all a sudden, it's pushed upward and
26:01
Speaker 1: you have a huge wall of water. But out in
26:03
Speaker 1: the ocean, you're like, look at how fast that three
26:05
Speaker 1: ft wave is traveling. Yeah, exactly, that's a tsunami. Plus again,
26:10
Speaker 1: we know what caused the tsunami, so it's not a
26:12
Speaker 1: rogue wave, and it's again not a huge towering wave
26:15
Speaker 1: on top of the water until it hits the coastline.
26:18
Speaker 1: That's right. Uh. And if your ship, um, you know,
26:23
Speaker 1: they can build you better and stronger to encounter harsher waves,
26:27
Speaker 1: but they're never gonna start building ships to withstand rogue
26:31
Speaker 1: waves because they're you know, they don't encounter them that often,
26:33
Speaker 1: and there's really nothing you can do if you come
26:35
Speaker 1: across a ninety ft wave, I mean the Empire State
26:38
Speaker 1: Building from the bottom to the you know kind of
26:42
Speaker 1: where the square part ends. It is a hundred and
26:44
Speaker 1: eleven feet. Can you imagine seeing a wave as tall
26:46
Speaker 1: as the Empire State Building. You can't build a ship
26:49
Speaker 1: that can withstand that. So basically, your your ballast is
26:53
Speaker 1: your stability, and they can build you as secure as possible,
26:57
Speaker 1: but there's really not much you can do top steer
27:00
Speaker 1: it as best you can and cross your fingers and pray.
27:04
Speaker 1: But also, you know, a greater understanding of how rogue
27:07
Speaker 1: waves come about, could you know, lead to improve safety
27:11
Speaker 1: less loss of life. Yeah. Maybe prediction I think is
27:14
Speaker 1: is the next wave if you will, like that's the
27:18
Speaker 1: only thing that's gonna be able to help is if
27:20
Speaker 1: you even a five minute heads up like this thing
27:22
Speaker 1: might be forming somewhere nearby, or sail around this area
27:26
Speaker 1: because that's a rogue wave city. Yeah, and no Opelio
27:29
Speaker 1: crab is worth it. You know. I saw this UM
27:32
Speaker 1: article they somebody did a study about shipping containers and
27:37
Speaker 1: UM the effect they have when they go overboard and
27:40
Speaker 1: apparently they provide nice little ecosystems when they hit the
27:44
Speaker 1: hit the bottom of the ocean, like they went and
27:46
Speaker 1: checked and they're like, okay, that's pretty great. Everything's just fine.
27:50
Speaker 1: They like the shipping containers down there, the artificial reefs
27:53
Speaker 1: right inadvertent ones. So that's it for rogue waves. If
27:59
Speaker 1: you want to learn more about it, you can type
28:01
Speaker 1: those two words into the search part how stuff works
28:04
Speaker 1: dot com. And since I said search part's time for
28:07
Speaker 1: the listener mail. I'm gonna call this help for my future.
28:15
Speaker 1: We've gotten a few of these where people ask for
28:17
Speaker 1: you know, like what should I do with my life?
28:19
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna read another one. First time email or
28:21
Speaker 1: longtime listener guys, I want to say your show has
28:24
Speaker 1: been with me through some very hard times. Your humor, friendship,
28:27
Speaker 1: and connection with your fans got me through the passing
28:30
Speaker 1: of my grandfather and a very hard breakup. So thanks
28:32
Speaker 1: for that. Uh. What I was hoping you could help
28:35
Speaker 1: me out with was this one more thing I feel
28:37
Speaker 1: lost with the path I am on in life. I'm
28:40
Speaker 1: a recent college grad from Western Washington. You with the
28:43
Speaker 1: bachelor's in history and a minor and web design. I'm
28:46
Speaker 1: now out in the working world, and I find it
28:48
Speaker 1: hard to decide what I want to do with my life.
28:50
Speaker 1: I've listened to past episodes where you answer fans who
28:52
Speaker 1: are written in, so I thought i'd give it a shot.
28:55
Speaker 1: Let it be clear, I am not a struggling college graduate.
28:57
Speaker 1: I've landed a steady, secure desk job, but after the
29:00
Speaker 1: first couple of months it's lost as luster and I
29:03
Speaker 1: feel myself becoming the stereotypical corporate drone. I'm impressed by
29:07
Speaker 1: the position you, too, have found yourself in. I want
29:09
Speaker 1: to know what advice you have for a young professional
29:11
Speaker 1: and scholar in this world. I need a career that
29:13
Speaker 1: has the potential to be fulfilling. More fulfilling than creating
29:16
Speaker 1: spreadsheets and TPS reports. That is from Kyle. TPS reports
29:20
Speaker 1: really exist, just like I think if people just use
29:24
Speaker 1: that phrase because they catch all from office space, but
29:27
Speaker 1: maybe it might be a real thing. That's Kyle. Yeah, Kyle, um.
29:31
Speaker 1: I thought about this a little bit. My advice to
29:34
Speaker 1: you is to not quit your job, but to do
29:37
Speaker 1: your soul searching on someone else's dime for a little while.
29:42
Speaker 1: If you've got a good job, you're way ahead of
29:44
Speaker 1: a lot of other people. So don't go quit in
29:47
Speaker 1: your job and saying, you know, I want to go
29:48
Speaker 1: open up a glamping operation in Colorado. Oh, it's the
29:53
Speaker 1: new thing with like high quality camping. Oh it's like
29:57
Speaker 1: the new butcher. Yes, sort of like a you know,
30:00
Speaker 1: you'll have a nice canvas tent in the woods with
30:02
Speaker 1: an actual bed and a rug and a lamp and
30:05
Speaker 1: a refrigerator and you charge people to go stay there.
30:07
Speaker 1: It sounds very nice. Yeah, it's not camping, it's lamping.
30:12
Speaker 1: But um, yeah, Kyle, So I would not suggest you,
30:14
Speaker 1: like go quit your job and run off and join
30:16
Speaker 1: the circus. How about that. That's easier, Kyle. I never
30:18
Speaker 1: have a heads up on stuff like this, so I
30:20
Speaker 1: never have any decent advice. But I definitely would side
30:25
Speaker 1: with Chuck on that one. Like if you if you
30:28
Speaker 1: got stability right now, that doesn't mean you're trapped. You're
30:30
Speaker 1: never trapped. Like, figure out what you want to do.
30:33
Speaker 1: Figure out what you can make decent money at that
30:37
Speaker 1: will make you happy. If it's not the job you're in,
30:40
Speaker 1: then there's your answer. Go figure out what that is,
30:43
Speaker 1: but do it in the context of your current job
30:46
Speaker 1: as well. It's almost across the board a bad idea
30:50
Speaker 1: to just quit your job and then figure out what
30:52
Speaker 1: you're going to do, Like that's not smart. Yeah, and
30:54
Speaker 1: these emails are sometimes stuff because Kyle, I can't decide
30:58
Speaker 1: what you like and what you joy. If you had
31:01
Speaker 1: written in and said, boy, I really love drawing cartoons
31:05
Speaker 1: or roller skating and long walks on the beach, right,
31:08
Speaker 1: but I am a corporate drone, then I would say, hey,
31:10
Speaker 1: maybe try and be a cartoonist. So you need to
31:14
Speaker 1: think about, sir, what you enjoy in life, of what
31:16
Speaker 1: inspires you. And there's probably a job scenario that fits
31:20
Speaker 1: that description. Yeah, and don't be discouraged about um having
31:25
Speaker 1: a history degree and not using it like that. It's
31:28
Speaker 1: becoming more and more prevalent to have a degree that
31:31
Speaker 1: you don't necessarily use. It just made you a more
31:35
Speaker 1: well rounded and interesting person and you learn the skills
31:38
Speaker 1: that you need to survive after college in college, no
31:41
Speaker 1: matter what your degree was. And you can always go
31:43
Speaker 1: to house stuff works dot com and look at the
31:45
Speaker 1: career s page. We actually have a career stage that
31:48
Speaker 1: is updated. And if they say there's jobs, there's jobs. Boom.
31:53
Speaker 1: Because I kind of feel like Kyle was asking a
31:55
Speaker 1: little bit for a job. Maybe well, thanks a lot, Kyle.
31:59
Speaker 1: We wish you the best to luck into everybody who
32:01
Speaker 1: finds himself or herself in a position similar to Cole's.
32:05
Speaker 1: We are crossing our fingers for you guys and sending
32:09
Speaker 1: you good vibes. Uh. And if you want to say
32:12
Speaker 1: hi to us in the interim, you can tweet to
32:14
Speaker 1: us at s Y s K podcast. You can join
32:17
Speaker 1: us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know.
32:19
Speaker 1: You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
32:22
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com, and you can hang out
32:25
Speaker 1: with us at our home on the web, Stuff you
32:27
Speaker 1: Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands
32:34
Speaker 1: of other topics, is it how stuff Works dot com.