Why Do Boats Make This Shape?

Go to https://nebula.tv/minutephysics to get access to Nebula (where you can watch the extended version of this video), plus you'll get a 20% discount on an annual subscription. This video is about the "Kelvin wake" shape of water wakes behind boats - we talk about mach angle, dispersion, superposition of many waves, and how these all lead to the pattern of a wake. We don't get into Froude number though... REFERENCES Boat Wake Wikipedia Page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake Interactive Boat Wake Simulation: https://observablehq.com/@rreusser/dispersion-in-water-surface-waves Feynman Lectures on Water Waves: https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_51.html#Ch51-S4 Building up a Boat Wake from V-Shaped Wakes: https://editor.p5js.org/aatish/full/bDiykicsC Wave Dispersion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispersion_relation Mach angle shock waves: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/mach-angle Ship Wakes - Kelvin or Mach Angle? Rabaud and Moisy Paper: https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.214503 Support MinutePhysics on Patreon! http://www.patreon.com/minutephysics Link to Patreon Supporters: http://www.minutephysics.com/supporters/ MinutePhysics is on twitter - @minutephysics And facebook - http://facebook.com/minutephysics And Google+ (does anyone use this any more?) - http://bit.ly/qzEwc6 Minute Physics provides an energetic and entertaining view of old and new problems in physics -- all in a minute! Created by Henry Reich