COMMUNICATIONS ON PURE AND APPLIED MATHEMATICS, VOL xx, 267-293 (1967)

Waves in Fluids*
M. J. LIGHTHILL
University of London

1. Introduction
Each speaker at this conference was asked to give the audience an integrated
view of a lot of seemingly disconnected pieces of mathematical theory. I am
going to try to do this with various pieces of theory about waves in fluids that have
grown up as part of the development of physics, mechanics, and various parts of
engineering and the earth sciences. The problems of communication involved in
showing the interrelationships between all these theories seem to me to have
something in common with art rather than science, and in fact I have tried to
summarize my view of the different kinds of wave and their interrelationships in
a work of visual art, as you can see (cf. Diagram on pp. 269-270). I must apologise
if most of my lecture takes the form of art criticism and general exegesis of this
painting rather than mathematical detail. Maybe I took much too literally
Donsker’s instruction to take a body of mathematical theory and “paint a picture
of it on a wide canvas” ! But, having done so, I naturally want to call attention to
its features.
2. Small Disturbances t o a Steady State
A few (actually twenty-six) of the types of wave system that can exist in fluids
are named on the diagram in blue. Each name is placed within an area of the
diagram1 outlined in green, and in most cases I have tried to make the shape of
that area appropriate in some way to the type of wave system concerned. More
important, I have grouped areas together when the wave systems concerned have
something in common. Following the name (in blue) of each wave system,
explanatory notes are given in black, while important effects of the non-linear
properties of the wave system are noted in red.
All these waves can exist in the form of very small disturbances to a steady state
of the fluid, disturbances which satisfy linear equations. The meaning of this is
that different such small disturbances can be superimposed without interacting;
one wave, for example, can go straight through another without noticing it. In

* This is a lecture given at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences on the occasion of
the Conference to dedicate Warren Weaver Hall in March, 1966. Reproduction in whole or in
part is permitted for any purpose of the United States Government.
This diagram, was visible to the audience in a 14 ft. X 10 ft. version throughout the lecture,
and was pointed at continually, even while slides (Figs. 1 to 23) were also being shown.
267
268 M. J. LIGHTHILL

these circumstances, any small disturbance, however complex, can be analysed

into regular sinusoidal components, each with its own frequency and wavelength
and direction of propagation. For each such component, the frequency multiplied
by the wavelength is the speed with which the crests and troughs move and is
called the phase velocity of the wave.
As the wave progresses it may become attenuated, by mechanisms which I
shall discuss, or it may actually grow in amplitude. I t may grow, in time, to a n
amplitude for which non-linear effects become important, including interactions
of one wave with others, and with itself. Even without growth of amplitude, it is
possible for the accumulated non-linear effect of a very small interaction over a
long time to produce sizeable results. But in this lecture I shall describe first the
basic linear properties of the waves as small-disturbance phenomena (that is, the
writing in blue and in black) before going on to the effects, mentioned in red,
that result from non-linear processes.
The waves in fluids that I am a t this moment using to communicate with you
are shown in the middle of the diagram, the shape of the area being circular to
emphasize that sound waves in a uniform fluid have the relatively unusual property
of spherical propagation, that is, isotropic propagation, with a velocity independent
of direction. I want to mention a t this point that mechanical properties of fluids
are brought into play in all the waves shown on the diagram, except light waves
(which were really included only as a convenient and familiar point of reference).
However, the special mechanical characteristics of fluids are shown most clearly
in the properties of sound waves. A crystal, with its lattice structure, has anisotropy
built into it, and solids resist of course, not only changes ofvolume but also changes
of shape, so that in solids different waves exist, normally with different speeds,
propagating changes of volume and of shape.
A fluid, on the other hand, exhibits an isotropic resistance to change in volume,
which we call its compressibility, and the associated acoustic wave is, actually, the
on& type of wave out of all these that the fluid's mechanical properties can support
in the absence of a n external force field (magnetic, gravitational or Coriolis), a
pre-existing flow, or a two-component system. For in the absence of all these
there can be no resistance to change of shape, and therefore changes of shape
without change of volume cannot be propagated as a wave.
A more precise description of sound waves attributes them to a balance between
compressibility, that is, resistance to change of volume, and inertia, that is,
resistance to change of velocity. Inertia, expressed, of course, in Newton's second
law of motion that the force required to change the velocity of a particle is equal
to its mass times the rate of change of velocity, is important in determining the
laws of propagation of all of the waves in the diagram, except light and two
systems (sedimentation waves and flood waves) whose propagation takes place
over a n exceptionally long time scale.
The velocity of a fluid can be defined as the local average momentum per unit
mass, and normally shows a continuous variation with position within the fluid.
 WAVES IN FLUIDS 27 1

Under these circumstances (Figure 1) the effect, on a small element of fluid, of

different bits of it moving in different directions, can be analysed into two parts,
namely, the part producing change of volume without change of shape, at a rate
written mathematically as the divergence of the velocity, and the part producing
change of shape without change of volume. The latter part can be further
analysed in two ways, both of which are useful : either as a combination of shearing
motions, which are parallel flows with velocity varying across the flow, or as a

DEFORMATION OF
FLUID SPHERE
= PART CHANGING +PART CHANGING

RATE OF CHANGE
OF VOLUME
= diu =dU +
t~
bX
PART CHANGING
ONLY SHAPE
= +
SYMMETRICAL
STRAINING
ROTATION AT
ANGULAR SPEED
icurR u

= VORTlClTY
Figure 1. Analysis of deformation of a small spherical element of fluid in non-
uniform motion.

combination of a symmetrical straining with a rotation, at a rotational speed

proportional to the curl of the velocity, a quantity which is more picturesquely
called the vorticity.
The velocity a t all points of a fluid is determined completely if we know, first,
its divergence (that is, the rate of volume change it is producing), secondly, its curl
(that is, the vorticity) at each point, and thirdly, the velocity of the boundary of
the fluid. Well away from any boundaries, therefore, all possible small disturbances
to the fluid are known if we know how changes in volume are propagated by
compressibility, namely as sound waves, and ifwe know how vorticity is propagated.
In the absence of external forces or pre-existing flows, the latter prcpagation does
not occur, and the vorticity of an element remains conserved in small disturbances;
but, in their presence, we shall see that vorticity waves can exist, propagated
along magnetic lines of force in a plasma, and in other ways in various stratified
fluids. Again, near the boundary of a fluid, wave motions are possible due solely
to the motion of the boundary, with zero divergence and zero vorticity throughout
the fluid, as in water waves.
272 M. J. LIGHTHILL

The law of propagation of sound waves is based (Figure 2) on two relations

between the density distribution and the velocity distribution: first, that the
proportional rate of change of density equals minus the divergence of the velocity,
and, secondly, that the mass times the rate of change of velocity per unit volume
of fluid equals the force resisting density changes. This force results from the
pressure changes they set up and mathematically is minus the gradient of the
pressure. Provided that the frequencies are not so great as to allow large departures

SOUND WAVES
RELATIONS BETWEEN DENSITY p AND VELOCITY V:

SMALL DISTURBANCES TO HOMOGENEOUS FLUID AT REST:

a
(ALSO - curl v = 0.) PHASE VELOCITY a IS INDEPENDENT OF DIRECTION AND
at
FREQUENCY. 2 MUST BE CALCULATED AT CONSTANT ENTROPY.
dP
LONG WAVES
ON WATER OF DEPTH h, SIMILAR EQUATIONS LEAD TO

xf = dp - pgdh -
dp dh gh*
px

Figure 2. Laws of propagation of sound waves and of long gravity waves.

from thermodynamical equilibrium, small changes in density propagate at a phase

velocity independent of direction and of frequency whose square is the rate of
change of pressure with density. Newton obtained an answer 20% too low by
supposing that this rate of change must be evaluated a t constant temperature, but
it later became clear that the thermodynamic quantity that remains constant in
these changes is that quantitative measure of molecular disorder which we call
entropy. Thus, entropy and vorticity stay put while density and divergence are
propagated.
Liquid helium I1 is an exception to this rule because, a t the low temperatures
a t which it exists, the quantum nature of the possible flows produces an effective
separation into two interpenetrating components, the normal fluid which carries
entropy and the superfluid component which has none. A so-called second sound
wave is then possible in which no overall density changes occur but only relative
motions of the normal and super fluids. These produce entropy concentrations
since only the normal fluid convects entropy. The associated temperature
 WAVES IN FLUIDS 273

gradients generate a counteracting relative motion of the two components, and

the balance between these effects propagates the wave, whose speed is less than
that of the compressibility-resisted sound wave.
The propagation of sound in three dimensions possesses a rather complete two-
dimensional analogue, the so-called 'long waves', that is, water waves of length
greatly exceeding the water depth. The velocity of the water in long waves is
approximately horizontal, and constant from the surface to the bottom. The
phenomenon analogous to compressibility is that divergence of the two-dimensional
velocity field can change the mass of water per unit area (by changing the depth),

W A V E S ON A SHEARED STREAM

WITH SPEED U(y) AT HEIGHT y ABOVE BOTTOM

LONG WAVES: SPEED c SATISFIES

(C -
(COMPARE
U ) z = gh
IF STREAM
SPEED U IS
UNIFORM.)
NOT SO LONG WAVES: STREAM FUNCTION ry SATISFIES ry = 0 AT y = 0 (BOTTOM)

@' = - (' - 'Iu'

-
ay (C - u)z
ry AT y = h (SURFACE) AND, IF WAVELENGTH = 2,
(U - c)(ry" - u'ry) - U"Y, = 0
ORR-SOMMERFELD EQUATION (WITHOUT VISCOSITY TERMS)

Figure 3. Laws of propagation of waves on a sheared stream.

but that this is resisted by gravity. The square of the phase velocity comes out as
the increase in pressure due to elevation of the surface divided by the effective
increase in density which that elevation produces, and this ratio is the undisturbed
depth multiplied by the acceleration due to gravity.
There is also a series of one-dimensional wave systems analogous to sound waves
shown on the diagram in the tube-like areas on the right. The familiar water
hammer propagates pressure changes like those produced by suddenly closing a
valve. These alter the volume of water in a small length of pipe owing to the com-
pressibility both of the water itselfand of the pipe walls. In a lead water pipe this
reduces the speed of propagation to around 70 % of the speed of sound in water.
For tube walls of much lower stiffness, the compressibility of the fluid itself is
unimportant, as in the case of the blood pulse, which travels at a speed between 1
and 10 metres per second. Interactions between the different harmonics of the
pulse and the mean flow are not very significant.
There is a significant interaction, however, between the propagation of water
waves up a river and the initial sheared flow in the river (Figure 3).2 The law of

J. C. Burns, Long waves in running water, Proc. Camb. Phil. SOC., Vol. 49, p. 695, 1953.
274 M. J. LIGHTHILL

propagation remains relatively simple in the case of long waves. But there is great
interest in waves on a stream that are “not so long”, especially those that remain
stationary as the stream flows by, since they can be generated by obstacles in the
stream or steps in the bed. The law of propagation of these waves is a combination
of the free-surface condition with a famous differential equation for general waves
on a sheared flow, a n equation due to Rayleigh, Orr, and Sommerfeld, and
treated particularly successfully by Tollmien and Schlichting. These waves are
mentioned in a n area whose thickness is slowly increasing because most shear flows,
for example a jet or a boundary layer, are of a thickness slowly increasing with
distance downstream.
In mentioning these waves, I have come to a problem where nothing analogous
to compressibility is relevant, and the waves propagate only redistributions of the

UNDl DISTURBANCE VORTl C I T Y

Figure 4. Schematic representation of a disturbance to which a sheared flow

with a vorticity maximum is unstable.

vorticity. These problems are important because under certain circumstances the
wave can grow in amplitude with time; in that case the original distribution of
shear is unstable. Distributions with a maximum shear in the midst of the layer
have this property, and this is why jets and wakes are so especially unstable and
prone to transition to turbulence.
The law of propagation of the waves depends on the fact that any disturbance
must redistribute the initial vorticity, at a rate balancing the rate at which its own
vorticity changes. The type of wave that can grow in amplitude when the initial
vorticity has a maximum in the midst of the layer is shown in Figure 4.
The case where the sheared flow is between two cylinders rotating a t different
speeds is interesting because the first calculation of conditions when the growth
of the waves will fail to be compensated by viscous dissipation was made in this
case, by Sir Geoffrey Taylor3, and shown to be in agreement with experiment.
Here, the basic tendency to growth exists when in the initial condition angular
momentum decreases outwards, for then exchange of angular momentum between
two concentric circles produces readjustments of centrifugal force tending to make
the exchange proceed further.
I must return now to long gravity waves, in the case when the whole fluid is in
simple rotation like a solid body, not in the sophisticated kind of sheared rotary
motion that I have just described. Experiments have been done in rotating rooms

Stability of a viscous liquid contained between two rotating cylinders, Phil. Trans. Roy. SOC.A., Vol.
223, p. 289, 1923.
 WAVES IN FLUIDS 275

which have shown that long waves cannot be propagated at frequencies less than
twice the frequency of rotation. This is because the Coriolis force due to rotation
introduces a resonance, which we may call “semidiurnal” since it occurs with a
period half that of the rotation. This increases the phase velocity as the frequency
falls until it becomes infinite a t the low-frequency cutoff which semidiurnal
resonance makes.
A closely analogous interaction occurs with electromagnetic waves in a plasma,
that is, a n ionized gas. As the frequency drops from the very high values character-
istic of light through the higher-frequency radio waves, the fluctuating electric
field has increasing time in which to counteract the inertia of the free electrons.
Their resulting movement produces a n additional field which modifies the law of
propagation of the wave. The phase velocity increases until it becomes infinite
a t a low-frequency cutoff which is, again, a resonance frequency, namely, that of
simple harmonic oscillations of plasma with electron inertia balanced merely by
electrostatic resistance to changes of electron density.
By contrast, waves in a rotating fluid not confined to a shallow layer, but filling
a large volume, possess (almost) a n opposite property. The frequency of these
waves varies as the sine of the angle between their crests and the axis of rotation,
reaching a maximum when this angle is 90”. So there is a high-frequency cutoff
in this case, which again is at the semidiurnal frequency, and the propagation is
anisotropic.
The tides take the form of long gravity waves, but are complicated by the
spherical geometry and by the shape of the oceans, as I have tried to suggest in the
diagram. Their motions, being horizontal, are influenced only by the vertical
component of earth‘s rotation. The resonant frequency is therefore the semidiurnal
frequency multiplied by the sine of the latitude.
Such motions have a limiting low-frequency case that can be identified both
in the ocean and the atmosphere, a case when the motions are purely horizontal,
without divergence or influence of gravity. Such waves would not exist unless the
resonant frequency, commonly called the Coriolis parameter, varied with latitude
in the way I mentioned. Longuet-Higgins4 has given a penetrating analysis of
these cases under the name “planetary waves”, and this has confirmed the value of
Rossby’s older approximation in which the fluid is regarded as filling a plane, the
so-called beta-plane, with Coriolis parameter varying linearly across it.
The original meaning of the word “wave” was confined to water waves, of a
type I have so far not mentioned, namely those whose ratio of wavelength to depth
is not large (Figure 5 ) . I n these the disturbance to the water does not penetrate
unchanged to the bottom and the effective inertia of the water is therefore reduced.
For waves on deep water this makes the square of the phase velocity proportional
to the wavelength rather than to the depth, essentially because the inertia is
reduced to that of a layer of fluid whose thickness is the wavelength divided by 2 ~ .

Planetary waues on a rotating sphere, Proc. Roy. SOC. A., Vol. 279, p. 446, 1964.
276 M . J. LIGHTHILL

Phase Water Waves

velocity1
Long waves ( c = __
k F y waves on
deeD water
23Cm's

17cm 2h 8h Wovelength
Figure 5. Phase velocity versus wavelength for waves of small amplitude on water
of depth h. (Note that the relative position of the points 1.7 cm and 2h on the
wavelength is variable, as is that of the points 23 cm/sec and 42 on the velocity
scale.)

For waves of intermediate length the reduction in phase velocity below the long-
wave value is only slight, and we shall see that its interaction with non-linear effects
is what makes these waves interesting. At very tiny lengths, on the other hand,
resistance to deformation of the surface is vigorously supplemented by the action
of surface tension, and this causes the phase velocity for such ripples, after reaching
a minimum of 23 cm/sec at a wavelength of 1.7 cm, to rise again as the wavelength
decreases further.
Gravity waves can also be produced internally in fluids, if there is horizontal
stratification. It is normally stated that stratification of density is needed, waves
being produced if the greater density is below and instability if the greater density
is above. However, to ensure stability and the production of regular waves, an
element of fluid must be so much denser than the fluid a t a higher level that it
remains denser even after rising to that level and sustaining the consequential drop
in pressure. In such a change it is the entropy which remains constant, and so it is
fluids with entropy stratified and increasing upwards that admit regular internal
waves.
This is yet another system for which a resonance exists: the Vaisala-Brunt
frequency, with which a vertical column of fluid would rise and fall under gravity
(Figure 6). Like the short waves in rotating fluid, these internal waves have a

INTERNAL WAVES
IF ENTROPY PER UNIT MASS, 5. IS A FUNCTION OF ALTITUDE,z, THEN VAISALA-BRUNT
FREQUENCY

WHERE cP = SPECIFIC HEAT AT CONSTANT PRESSURE

INTERNAL WAVE WITH CRESTS AT ANGLE e TO HORIZONTAL HAS FREQUENCY

0 = ovaSIN e.
Figure 6. Law of propagation of internal waves in a horizontally stratified fluid.
 WAVES IN FLUIDS 277

high-frequency cutoff a t the Vaisala-Brunt frequency, and their frequency varies

with the sine of the angle of the wave crests to the horizontal.
I n the ocean, the Vaisala-Brunt frequency rises to a maximum a t a depth of
about 30 m, the so-called thermocline; therefore, a t frequencies near this maxi-
mum, the ocean can sustain waves trapped within that thin layer where their
frequency does not exceed the local cutoff frequency. Calculations show that this
defines a set of normal trapped-wave modes for the ocean mathematically analogous

Figure 7. Lee waves.

to the vibrational quantum states of the diatomic molecule, modes which are
excited, for example, by the passage of submarine^.^
Similar waves can occur in the atmosphere, but, since the wind normally
increases with height, the typical situation is an interesting combination of internal
waves with waves on a sheared flow. Because they are typically excited by the
airflow over a mountain they are called lee waves and of course when the relative
humidity is high condensation in the tops of the waves can make them visible as a
characteristic cloud pattern, illustrated here by a photograph taken by Professor
Ludlam in the Pennines (Figure 7).
Not only gravitational and Coroilis forces call into being interesting wave
systems. Magnetic fields, suggested on the diagram by the magnet-like shape and
the lines offorce, also combine with the inertia of the fluid to propagate waves. The

See, for example, C. Eckart, Internal waves in the ocean, Physics of Fluids, Vol. 4, p. 791, 1961.
278 M. J. LIGHTHILL

mechanical effects of such a field are equivalent to the action of the stress system
derived by Maxwell, consisting of a pressure proportional to the square of the field
acting equally in all directions and a simple tension of twice the amount acting
along the lines of magnetic force. The nature of the waves reflects that of Maxwell's
stress system.
An important simple case is that in which gas pressures are negligibly small
compared with magnetic pressures. This is so in interplanetary space, and indeed
a t all heights above the earth's surface exceeding about 200 km. Thens the com-
ponents of fluid velocity a t right angles to the lines of force are propagated in two
kinds of wave ; their curl is propagated by magnetic tension unidirectionally along
the lines of force, while their divergence is propagated spherically by magnetic
pressure like a sound wave. Both waves have the same phase velocity, whose
square is the magnetic tension divided by the density of charged particles.
At higher gas pressures, the coupling of magnetoacoustic waves with waves a t
the quite different sound speed produces anisotropy ; whereas, a t higher frequencies,
the fact that the inertia is principally in the ions but modifications to the magnetic
field are generated principally by the electron motions causes the magnetoacoustic
and AlfvCn waves to be coupled; this complicates the dependence of phase velocity
on direction for both of them.

3. The Propagation of Disturbances Through

Dispersive Inhomogeneous Media

I have completed the first tour of my diagram. This has brought to light
many cases of the phase velocity of sinusoidal waves varying, both with the wave-
length and with the angle of the wave cqests. I want to mention now the effect of
this on disturbances that are not perfectly periodic and sinusoidal.'
When the variation is only with wavelength (Figure 8), it is rather well-known
that the energy in each sinusoidal component is carried forward not a t t h e phase
velocity, with which the crests move, but a t the so-called group velocity. This
may be greater or less, depending on whether the phase velocity decreases or
increases with increasing wavelength.
Thus, the group velocity is less than the velocity of crests and troughs for gravity
waves on deep water, and when we throw a stone into a pond the crests travel
outwards faster than the energy, which is why they continually disappear on
reaching the front of the group. But, for very short ripples, surface tension causes
the phase velocity to increase as the wavelength is reduced, and so the group
velocity exceeds the phase velocity.

See, for example, M. J. Lighthill, Note on waves through gases at pressures small compared with the
magnetic pressure, with applications to upper-atmosphere aerodynamics, J. Fluid Mech., Vol. 9, p. 465, 1960.
' In Group velocity, J. Inst. Math. & Appl., Vol. 1, p. 1, 1965, I have given a much fuller account
of all the material in this section.
 WAVES IN FLUIDS 279

IF WAVES OF LENGTH I HAVE PHASE VELOCITY C, THEY CARRY ENERGY FORWARD

AT THE

G R O U P VELOCITY = c - I a.
dc

C I
IF = - = FREQUENCY, k = - = WAVENUMBER,
I 1

G R O U P VELOCITY = x.
do

FREQUENCY WITH WHICH AN OBSERVER MOVING AT SPEED U PASSES CRESTS IS

w - kU,
AND THIS I S SAME FOR TWO SUCH OBSERVERS (A SMALL FIXED DISTANCE APART) IF

do
U=-
dk

Figure 8. Laws governing dispersion when phase velocity varies with wavelength
but not with angle of crests.

A body moving steadily through water makes waves that have the same phase
velocity as the body, so that they remain stationary relative to it. Because the
energy necessarily passes into these waves from the body, the tiny ripples whose
group velocity exceeds their phase velocity are found in front, while behind it are
found the gravity waves whose velocity of energy propagation is less than their
phase velocity.
The simplest formula for group velocity is the rate of change of frequency per
unit change in the wavenumber (that is, the reciprocal wavelength, or number of
waves per cm). This can be seen intuitively if we consider the process called
dispersion, in which the waves of different lengths that make up a disturbance, as a
result of travelling each at a different group velocity, become dispersed from one
another. An observer who got mesmerized into following wave crests would soon
find himself looking a t waves of quite different length, but if he moved his gaze at
exactly the group velocity, he would continue to watch always waves of the same
length. If, therefore, a second observer moved along keeping always a fixed distance
behind the first, then the number of crests between the two would remain the same.
Hence the frequency with which they pass crests must be the same. For each
observer this is the wave frequency minus the product of the number of waves per
unit length and the observer’s speed. This can be the same for the two observers
only if their speed is the change in frequency divided by the change in wavenumber.
Similar arguments lead to a similar rule in three dimensions (Figure 9), when
the wavenumber has three components, namely, the number of waves per cm in
the directions of the three coordinate axes. The group velocity is given in magni-
tude and direction by the rule that its component in the x direction is the rate of
280 M . J. LIGHTHILL

I N DIRECTION PARALLEL TO
X-AXIS Y-AXIS Z-AXIS
NUMBER OF WAVES PER
CENTIMETRE (i.e. COMPONENT kX k, k,
OF WAVENUMBER)

COMPONENT OF GROUP
VELOCITY

EXAMPLE: INTERNAL WAVES

GROUP VELOCITY 1 WAVENUMBER
(SINCE o IS HOMOGENEOUS OF ZERO ORDER I N k,, k,, k,)

Figure 9. Dispersion in the general anisotropic case.

change of frequency when the x component of wavenumber changes, and similarly

with they and z directions.
For example, with internal waves, this rule gives a group velocity not per-
pendicular to the wave crests but parallel to them, that is, perpendicular to the
wavenumber vector. This means in a practical case that the energy fed in a t a
given fraction of the Vaisala-Brunt frequency disperses in a cone, such that the
cosine of its semi-angle equals that fraction. Figure 10 shows a n experiment
(Mowbray, unpublished) where the ratio of frequencies was just above 0.7 so that
the waves were propagated a t about 45" to the horizontal, the energy moving
radially outwards but the wave crests in a direction perpendicular to the radius.

Figure 10. Internal waves generated in a uniformly stratified tank of salt solution.
 WAVES IN FLUIDS 28 1

So you have the unfamiliar spectacle of crests stretching out radially from the
source !
A very similar result holds for short waves in rotating fluid except that the
ratio of frequency to the cutoff frequency is the sine of the cone's semi-angle. I n
the limit of very low-frequency excitation, this gives Sir Geoffrey Taylor's result
that the disturbance fills a cylinder parallel to the axis of rotation.
Obviously all the waves in the diagram can show very complex features on
passing through regions where characteristic quantities, like pressure, temperature,
water depth, pipe width, magnetic field, Vaisala-Brunt frequency, and so on, vary

PROPAGATION IN INHOMOGENEOUS DISPERSIVE MEDIUM

IF w = o ( k , . k,, k,, X . y,z), THEN A WAVE PACKET CHANGES POSITION AND WAVE-
NUMBER ACCORDING TO THE EQUATIONS

-dx= - am 3- aw g=%
dt ak,' dt - xv' dt ak,'

- _- - 2
dk,
dt ax'
dk, aw
X = - - 6'y '
dk,
-=--
dt
ao
az I

AND ENERGY DENSITY IN EACH WAVE PACKET VARIES IN TIME IN PROPORTION TO

NUMBER DENSITY OF ADJACENT WAVE PACKETS

Figure 11. Law of propagation of a wavepacket in an inhomogeneous medium.

(Note. If the medium is also attenuative, an additional factor in the energy density
is also present, whose proportional rate of change is the local attenuation rate.)

gradually with position. These difficulties of inhomogeneity are often combined

with those of dispersion and anisotropy. I want to mention a very general approach
to the calculation of propagation processes of this kind, an approach that in
principle has been available for a long time, but that has become a practical
possibility by the development of high-speed computation.
I t makes use of the duality between waves and particles, that is fundamental to
quantum mechanics, and follows a wave packet through the system as if it were a
particle. If (Figure 1 1) the frequency has a known dependence on each component
of wavenumber a t each point of space, then the velocity of such a particle is the
group velocity, that is, the gradient of frequency with respect to wavenumber.
As the wave packet moves through the inhomogeneous medium, however, its
wavenumber changes by refraction, and the simple formula for its rate of change is
minus the spatial gradient of the frequency function. These equations for the
dynamics of the wave packet take the Hamiltonian form expected from the fact
that the analogues of wavenumber and frequency in classical mechanics are
momentum and total energy. Modern computing aids make it easy to accumulate
solutions of these three-degree-of-freedom dynamical equations. Each solution
represents one wave packet. The variation of energy density in the wave system,
282 M. J. LIGHTHILL

and hence of amplitude, can then be derived from the fact that the energy density
of a wave packet will vary in time in proportion to number density of adjacent
wave packets.
This appears a good technique for a t least the next ten years, that is, a period
when solving six coupled ordinary differential equations for a large number of sets
of initial conditions has become easy and cheap, but solving a complicated partial
differential equation in four independent variables remains prohibitively expensive.
The method is valid whenever the length-scale of inhomogeneities is large com-
pared with a wavelength.
The very general form of the rule I have stated includes many simple special
cases, for example, when the waves are non-dispersive. Two of these are the rules
known as geometrical acoustics, and the very old law of Green that long waves in a
channel of varying cross-section will have their amplitude proportional to the
inverse fourth root of the product of channel breadth and cross-sectional area.

4. Attenuation and Non-Linear Processes

The rest of this lecture is about aspects of the attenuation of these waves, and
effects of non-linear processes in them, beginning with sound waves and their close
analogues.
The attenuation of sound is due mainly to those lazy molecules that lag in the
processes of energy adjustment called for by rapid temperature fluctuations. Even
a molecular state accounting for only a very small percentage of the specific heat
of the gas causes acoustic energy attenuation per wavelength of just about the
same percentage, if the sound frequency is within an octave or so of the characteristic
frequency of the process of adjustment of the energy in that state. In atmospheric
air the vibrations of the oxygen molecule, although accounting for only 0.2 per cent
of the specific heat, account for most of the attenuation. The main excitation
process is critically dependent on the humidity, consisting as it does of a collision
with two water molecules. At room temperature the characteristic frequency is
ultrasonic on a wet day but at a relative humidity of 10 per cent is 3000 c/s.
By contrast, the effect of viscosity and heat conduction, that is, of the diffusion
of momentum and energy by molecular jostlings and transport between collisions,
is small until megacycle frequencies are reached. At lower frequencies these effects
are important, however, for sound propagated in tubes, where viscous diffusion of
momentum between the moving gas in the tube and the stationary molecules
adsorbed on the wall dissipates energy much more rapidly.
The blood pulse, again, is strongly influenced by viscosity, being indeed slow
enough for vorticity created at the wall to diffuse all the way to the center in a
single cycle. Figure 12 shows a complete cycle of distributions of velocity across the
femoral artery of a dog, obtained by measuring the pressure gradient as a function
of time, analysing it as a steady term, a fundamental sinusoidal oscillation, and
three higher harmonics, and adding up the associated components of velocity
 WAVES IN FLUIDS 283

I
Phase Phbse
angles angles

Figure 12. Distributions of velocity at 30" phase intervals across femoral artery
of dog.

distribution calculated using the measured viscosity of blood.8 The energy in the
fundamental mode in this case is damped by 1 per cent per cm.
Non-linear effects, to which I must now urgently turn, are understood in a really
systematic manner only for the non-dispersive waves, like sound. In these waves,
in fact, non-linear processes call into play a radically different kind of dispersion, or
at least of modification of the waveform, which I find convenient to call amplitude
dispersion. The study of amplitude dispersion without frequency dispersion is
rather well advanced, although the study of the interaction of the two is only in
its infancy.
By amplitude dispersion I mean the fact that different values of the pressure in
a sound wave are propagated forwards at different speeds, mainly because where
the pressure is elevated, the fluid velocity is in the direction of propagation,
propagation which takes place there through forward-moving fluid ; the actual
speed of sound relative to that forward-moving fluid is also slightly elevated by
compression at constant entropy. As time goes on, regions of high pressure, being
propagated faster, gradually catch up regions of low pressure. Figure 13 shows
successive stages of this process, photographed using an interferometer. The
propagation is from right to left.
Now, this catching up cannot proceed to where the higher pressure would
actually overtake the lower, because obviously you cannot have two different
values of the pressure at one point. However, immediately before this would
happen, a region with a very large gradient of pressure, temperature, velocity, and
so on, must be brought into being, and this permits the various attenuative effects
that I mentioned before to oppose, and finally prevent, further increase of those

See D. A. McDonald, Blood Flow in Arteries, Edward Arnold, 1960.

284 M. J. LIGHTHILL

Figure 13. Formation of a shock wave. Interferogram of wave at successive

instants (from right to left). Each dark line isessentiallyagraph of density (on a suit-
able scale) against distance. In the first picture they have moderate slope, in the
second they have become steeper, and in the third discontinuous.

gradients. In other words, the non-linear effect whereby the higher pressure
catches up on the lower pressure proceeds until just before overtaking occurs, when
dissipative effects become so strong that they bring it to a halt. Then it has become
that very rapid transition, which we call a shock wave, and which moves faster
than sound into the fluid ahead of it, although slower than sound away from the
fluid behind it. The fact that no new mass, momentum or energy can be created
a t the shock wave is used to deduce the changes in density, temperature and velocity,
and the entropy increase due to dissipation inside the shock wave, as a function
of the pressure ratio across it.
I t may be asked which dissipative mechanisms will be called into play when
several thermodynamic adjustment processes are available. The process with the
first chance to be effective, as catching up proceeds, is that with the longest
adjustment time. I n the case of the very weakest shocks, this process by itself is
adequate. But when the amplitude dispersion is too strong for this effect to resist it,
the next longest process is called into play and the main shock transition then takes
place during its adjustment time, followed by a slower adjustment involving only
the first process. But when all these thermodynamic adjustments are insufficient
to cope, that is, when the entropy increase they provide is less than the shock wave
conditions demand, the overtaking proceeds until (what is always possible) a shock
layer has been created so thin that viscosity and heat conduction provide the
necessary dissipation. A molecule, in fact, undergoes only a few collisions while
passing through a strong shock wave, which in air is less than a micron thick. A
very abrupt discontinuity indeed ! Any slow thermodynamic adjustments then
take place behind the shock wave p r ~ p e r .An
~ extreme case of this is the detonation,
where a zone of chemical reaction follows immediately behind the shock wave,
being rendered possible by the rise in temperature.
Analogous behavior is shown by the tides, whose amplitude increases as they
pass into shallower waters, like those around the British Isles, producing a still

I have given a much fuller account of accoustic attenuation, amplitude dispersion, and shock
wave formation and structure, on pp. 250-351 of Surveys in Mechanics ed. G. K. Batchelor & R. M.
Davies; Cambridge University Press, 1956.
 WAVES IN FLUIDS 285

greater increase in the importance of non-linear processes. An early result of

these is to generate the first harmonic, which in particular regions like the
neighborhood of the Isle of Wight may then be amplified by resonance to become
the largest component.
More spectacular results are possible in an estuary whose gradual reduction of
depth and breadth makes progressive amplification of the tide possible. This can
maintain the process of amplitude dispersion against th.3 attenuating effects of
turbulent resistance, until, just as in the acoustic case, a discontinuity forms. This

Figure 14. The bore in the Tsien Tang River.

discontinuity, or “bore”, may, in the most spectacular cases, achieve the necessary
entropy increase in a great turbulent wall of water carried along by the wave
(Figure 14).
Some altogether less precipitous wave processes are identifiable in broad rivers
where turbulent resistance keeps the flow speed rather firmly under control. Then,
inertia effects may not be very important, so that the river speed is determined
for each value of the water level by the balance between gravitational pull
towards the sea and turbulent resistance. The resulting increase of speed with
water level means that the flow, that is, the volume of water passing a point in
unit time, is a function of the concentration, that is, the volume ofwater occupying
unit length of river. Under these circumstances1° any value of the flow is propa-
gated down the river a t a speed equal to the rate of change of flow with con-
centration. This can be proved by exactly the same argument that I used to show
that group velocity was the rate of change of frequency with wavenumber, and

l o M. J. Lighthill and G. B. Whitham, On kinematic waues, I. Flood movement in long riuers, Proc.
Roy. SOC. A., Vol. 229, p. 281, 1955.
286 M. J. LIGHTHILL

indeed frequency is the rate of flow of wave crests and wavenumber is their
concentration. An identical result holds for sedimentation waves, based on the
fact that the fall speed of suspended particles in a fluid decreases with increase of
concentration (owing to the rise in effective viscosity).ll In both these systems,
then, there is amplitude dispersion and a resulting phenomenon which, viewed
on a large enough scale, can be regarded as a discontinuity. It appears at the

Figure 15. Hydraulic Jump (reproduced, with Figure 15, from J. J. Stoker,.
Water Waues, Interscience Publishers, 1957).

head of any pulse in flood waves, since the speed increases with concentration,
and at the rear in sedimentation waves, for which it decreases.
In streams of much greater slope, however, the so-called torrents, inertial
effects such as gravity waves are again important. Stationary discontinuities,
usually called hydraulic jumps although they are identical to bores in structure,
can be shown to be the only means by which such a stream can slow down from
speeds greater than the long-wave speed to speeds below it (Figure 15). This
incidentally is why a circular hydraulic jump of large amplitude is formed in the
kitchen sink when you turn on the tap.
The problem of obtaining a general theory of the interaction between amplitude

11 G. J. Kynch, A theory ofsedimentation, Trans. Faraday SOC.,Vol. 48, p. 166, 1952.

 WAVES IN FLUIDS 287

dispersion and frequency dispersion is recognized now as a major task by students

of the subject, and papers aimed at this are beginning to come thick and fast.
For some time, however, one particular case has been known where these two
effects can be in perfect balance, namely, that of water waves of length between
about 8 and 16 times their depth. The phase velocity of such a wave is practically
the long-wave speed, but that of its higher harmonics is less. In one particular
series of periodic waveforms, which are combinations of the fundamental and

Figure 16

higher harmonics, the tendency to change of waveform due to this inequality of

phase velocity exactly balances the amplitude dispersion effect. These are called
cnoidal waves because their surface shape is the square of the Jacobian elliptic
function cn.
The existence of this perfectly periodic wave influences the character of weaker
bores like those on the river Mersey (Figure 16). These do not have a turbulent
front because they can get rid of the necessary energy by radiation backwards
through a cnoidal wave train, whose crests move at the bore’s speed but which
transmits energy a t a slightly slower speed. Such undulatory bores are possible
only for depth increases of up to 25 %, because a maximum amplitude for cnoidal
waves exists (Figure 17). Indeed as, the amplitude increases, the separate humps
move apart, till each becomes Scott Russell’s famous solitary wave. At amplitudes
288 M. J. LIGHTHILL

beyond this, progressive steepening of the wave front to the point of bore formation
is unavoidable.12
A quite different non-linear limitation exists on waves of length less than 8
times the depth, whose crest becomes sharper, but remains symmetrical as their
amplitude increases. Beyond a certain amplitude, the crest starts to generate
spray in the form of whitecaps. These waves (it may be noted) are usually wind-
generated, extracting their energy, indeed, from waves on a sheared airstream.13
I shall have to refer only very briefly to the other non-linear phenomena in the
diagram. In sheared flows any regular waves are rolled up by non-linear effects

I
8 -
Length 16
Depth

Figure 17. Amplitude-wavelength diagram for water waves. (In case of solitary
wave, “length” means “effective length”.)

into discrete vortices. Regular waves occur, however, only in flows on rather a
small scale, where the attenuating influence of viscosity permits just those waves
in a narrow band of frequencies to be amplified. A good example is the famous
Karman Vortex Street (Figure 18). Furthermore, in a flattenedjet, an edge can
be placed so as to select one particular frequency within the band, and the vortices
created then generate sounds, known as edge tones, which, strengthened by
resonators, are responsible for many of the pleasant features of wind instruments.
Larger-scale flows are unstable to a broad spectrum of frequencies, and the
waves then develop into the highly randomized eddying motion that we call
turbulence (Figure 19). In larger-scale sheared flows, oddly enough, a small
amount of viscosity can give a negative attenuation to certain waves, so that flows
which for a theoretical inviscid fluid would be stable (because the vorticity is a
maximum at the wall) are unstable for a slightly viscous fluid. This is due to
diffusion of disturbance vorticity from the wall to where it can more effectively
reinforce the propagation.
Sheared rotary flow is another case where the waves develop into vortices,

l a I have given a much fuller discussion in Riuer Waves, Chap. I1 of Naval Hydrodynamics, Publ.
515 of Nat. Acad. Sci.-Nat. Res. Counc. Washington, 1957.
18 See, for example, M. J. Lighthill, Physical interpretation of the mathematical theoty o f wavegeneration
by wind, J. Fluid Mech., Vol. 14, p. 385, 1962.
 WAVES IN FLUIDS 289

Figure 18. Karman Vortex Street behind a circular cylinder stretched across
a stream.

Figure 19. Turbulent air jet.

290 M. J. LIGHTHILL

as illustrated in a beautiful picture by Sir Geoffrey Taylor (Figure 20) ; whereas

internal gravity waves, just like surface gravity waves, can develop what is
practically a hydraulic jump. Both effects are observed in large-amplitude lee
waves produced in highly stratified flow over mountains. The cold flow may form
a torrent down the lee side of the mountain which can lose speed again only a t a
huge hydraulic jump. In the meantime, the leading lee wave can grow in

Figure 20. Taylor Vortices, in the flow between two concentric cylinders rotating
at different speeds (reproduced,with Figure 19, from S. Goldstein, Modern Deuelop-
ments in Fluid Dynamics, Oxford University Press, 1938).

amplitude to the point of becoming a discrete vortex, the so-called rotor, which
may, sometimes, be rather intimately attached to the jump, as is probably the
case in a photograph of the Californian Sierra Wave (Figure 21).
The jet streams high in the atmosphere and the cyclones farther down can be
thought of as non-linear developments of wave systems which have been variously
regarded as Rossby waves, waves on the polar front and, more generally, waves
developing in a zonal flow on a rotating sphere with both horizontal and vertical
shear and entropy stratification.14 Of these phenomena, jet streams a t least can be
created in the laboratory in a rotating saucepan, or dishpan (as they call it in
Chicago), heated a t the outside and cooled in the middle (Figure 22). There is a
remarkable concentration of the disturbance into a narrow jet, exactly as in the
tropopause disturbance of the atmosphere itself.
14 J. G. Charney, Dynamics of long waues in a baroclinic wester& current, J. Meteorol., Vol. 4, p. 135,
1947.
I62 saIn-rd NI SXAVM
292 M. J. LIGHTHILL

Last of all, I shall refer to the grand exhibition of waves in fluids, including
magnetogasdynamic shock waves, which the solar system itself is continually
staging for us. Evidence has accumulated during the past five years concerning
the solar wind, a steady stream of particles, mainly protons and electrons, between
1 and 10 per cubic centimeter, that are boiling off from the sun and spreading out
radially at a velocity of some hundreds of kilometers a second. The motion of the
different particles is kept in some gratifying semblance of order by the weak

/a Geomagnetic line

Q9
of force

Magnetosphere

Figure 23. Diagrammatic representation of the flow of the solar wind past the
magnetosphere.

interplanetary magnetic field. The much stronger field of the earth, however, has
a magnetic pressure so great that it stops the solar wind in its tracks (Figure 23),
and forces it to avoid and flow around the whole area, filled with magnetic lines of
force emanating from the earth, which we call the magnetosphere.
In interplanetary space, the speed of magnetoacoustic waves is 100 km/sec or a
little less. Therefore, the flow of the solar wind at several times this speed past the
magnetosphere is similar to the flow around a spacecraft as it re-enters the earth’s
atmosphere at several times the sound speed, and may be represented diagrammati-
cally as in Figure 23. In particular, it can be expected to have a strong shock wave
in front; this time, a magnetogasdynamic shock wave.15 Measurements with
15 See for example L. Lees, Interaction of solar plasma wind and geometric cavity, Amer. Inst. Aeron.

Astron. J., Vol. 2, p. 1576, 1964.

 WAVES IN FLUIDS 293
satellites in the Explorer, Pioneer and Imp series have confirmed the separate
existence of the magnetosphere boundary, where the magnetic field discon-
tinuously drops, and of a further discontinuity, the magnetogasdynamic shock
wave, some distance beyond it, and have demonstrated most satisfactorily that the
shape of these surfaces is generally consistent with the analogy that I have
described.
But it must now be obvious that my whole subject is non-linear in quite a
different sense, in that the lecturer gets worked up to the point where all the differ-
ent kinds of wave catch each other up and he starts describing them all simul-
taneously. That is obviously the point at which the proceedings terminate in an
abrupt discontinuity.
Received June, 1966.