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I want to make a science project using the model of tsunami. Can you help me to figure out something that involves it?
Question Date: 2010-03-05
Answer 1:

A tsunami is a wave that originates from something in a body of water moving and changing the shape of the container the water is in. If you have a bucket of water and you tap it from the side, you will see a ripple from the flexure of the bucket. That ripple is a (very small) tsunami - of course, earthquakes, which carry far more energy than you do, can make much bigger tsunamis.

You could do something to try and measure the amount of force of the tsunami and the effect generating it, such as changing the shape of the bucket by a slight amount and then letting go, and measuring how big the ripple is in either case. Or you might try to show how the size of a tsunami wave gets bigger the shallower the water, and show how far up the side of a container the ripple goes if the container wall is steep or shallow.



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