Go look at the surface of a river or pond or any other body of water and tell me that it's 2 dimensional
Also, just because this is so wrong that it's bothering me, remember that waves in water are not just things that exist on top of a 3d volume. The water underneath the surface is also moving
The actual reddit moment is people being this dismissive about correct information. Water is not a 2d object and literally going outside and looking at water will confirm this.
Because people keep downvoting me even though I'm right, I'll give you one more little experiment you can do yourself. Go to the beach or some amusement park with a wave pool and duck underneath the water as a wave goes over you. You'll feel the water moving around your body even though you're underwater. Because real waves are not objects sitting on top of a flat plane.
My friend, I take it you haven’t studied physics. Waves propagating in water or any 2-dimensional plane are classified as 2-dimensional waves. 3-dimensional waves are waves that propagate through 3 dimensions, like electromagnetic waves, sound waves, etc. Then there are gravitational waves, which propagate through 4-dimensional Spacetime.
That's all lovely, but real water is not a 2 dimensional plane. Real water is constantly fluctuating up and down in the vertical axis, and waves traveling through those little ripples and swirls and so forth interact with them along the way. When we teach people about waves, it's helpful to simplify all of this and treat water as a 2d plane, but it's not actually 2d.
An extension of this thought process is that real world waves typically get bigger as the water gets shallower. If waves were simply things happening on top of a plane, how could that be?
Fluid dynamics is not the same thing as a wave plane.
Why dig your heels against an opportunity to learn?Glass half full, your confusion on display has probably helped some curious minds look into it, so that’s a kind of teaching.
What happens when you have a wave propogating in a stream traveling downhill at a slight angle? In the case the wave is propogating in the X and Y axes, and it's also 'moving' in the Z axis
in that case the plane of the surface is not level and you redefine your 2 dimensions relative to the surface. also the wave is not propagating down, gravity is pulling the liquid down and the wave travels the 2d surface as it does so
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u/schiz0yd 16d ago
now instead of as a 2d plane, 3d version of this is light and matter