Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Wake Memory

One thing connects the last two posts, namely impressions on water. For the Sargents it was the wake of the boat in the storm while for the Solaris it was random images on the water - or so I thought.

For one thing I've become aware of is how long the subtle impressions of boats travelling along the river can last. For example the photo above was taken a few minutes after a slow moving tourist boat went by leaving behind these neat straight lines.

According to Wikipedia wakes are formed in deep water or when the speed of the boat is greater than the speed of waves, neither of which was probably the case here. So what we have are the bubbles left by collapsing waves and the slightly smoother water it left behind (I must find some more references for this behaviour).

So maybe those apparently random patterns in the rain could have been twisted imprints of boats that had passed by, like the memory of the river.

Rather an appropriate connection to a science fiction story about a self-aware ocean!

4 comments:

Baydog said...

Sail away, away
Ripples never come back
Gone to the other side
Sail away, away

doryman said...

Leave no wake is the best policy. The river remembers everything.

doryman

JP said...

Nicely put.

There's something about watching the ripples and waves of a river that brings out our inner poet and philosopher.

O Docker said...

Watching opalescent bubbles ascend gracefully through a pint of ale has the same effect on me.