The Folly off Wave Measurement

Some time back someone posted on Facebook,  the claim that mankind can measure accurately,  the ocean's waves.

This struck me as a quiet notion.  I had surfed almost daily for over a decade in my youth,  often at the same reef break, and never seen two waves exactly the same.  Yes,  I agree,  they can look basically the same,  particularly on the same day.  But they are incrementally different.  You feel this as you surf,  each wave varies in height,  angle (across the dimensions)  speed. I recall a common expression among surfers add they picked off waves together for hours on end,  when a mate caught a particularly good surfing wave,  it would be said that he" got a good one". That every so often,  a wave just that little more special than others would come through. because it was evident to us surfers,  the tide, currents,  wind,  swell intensity and direction were in constant flux.  This id's what explained or experience,  that no two waves were the same.

So,  I disagreed with the claim that waves could be accurately measured.  Several Commenters asserted that wave measurement was "a thing". It'd heard this before from my sister who has a mathematics degree.  I agreed in theory,  but wholeheartedly disagreed with the belief that "man" could accurately quantify the shape of waves on am ever changing sea.  Still some Commenters tried to shoot me down,  one asserted in two words "you're wrong", another John Welsford I believe,  leaned back heavily on his expertise in boat design, and opposed my claim. I threw out a list off dynamic variables totoaster to shake their firm beliefs,  but got no supporters. I knew I was somewhere closer to the truth  but lacked the capacity to express the essence of my belief. Tonight  I discovered this quote by physicist and philosopher,  Sir James Jeans:-


Physics tries to discover the pattern of events which controls the phenomena we observe. But we can never know what this pattern means or how it originates; and even if some superior intelligence were to tell us, we should find the explanation unintelligible.

— Sir James Jeans