Journal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 13

Journal - Essay Example base is a valid excuse for safeguarding the crops, nonetheless the critique feels that this is no excuse for resorting to harsh and rigid punishments for these acts. Solomon’s main contention is that the rigidity of the laws that are in vogue does not leave any room for mitigating circumstances and hence there should be some sort of balance in the way the social structure in the village is maintained as well as enforced. In my opinion, condemning the practices in the village as backward or tribal misses the point of the book. The book is mostly about how the pastoral communities live and work together as a unit along with the necessary conditions for social cohesion that are needed for the village to exist as a unit. Solomon’s critique overlooks this aspect of the story as well as ignores the way in which the village needs to sustain itself. Of course, the critique is definitely strong on the point of the medieval spirit that pervades the village. However, it is to be understood as describing a place in another period rather than an anachronism. The critique should have explored how the lives of the peasants and the farmers were dependant on the vagaries of the weather and hence the appeasement of the same can be understood from this perspective. The book is mostly about how the codes of conduct that are necessary for the social mores to be enforced are laid down and the behavior of the people in the village made to conform to these traditions and customs. However, as the critique points out, some of these laws seem barbaric. My point in the preceding paragraph was about how the critique betrays ignorance about how life in the tribal societies was and the way in which the pastoral communities went about their work and life. To take this further, the communities described in the book exist as a set of interdependent units and are closely knit. Hence, there needs to be some sort of balance between the way they live and work. Division of duties needs to be

Prediction of Coastal Wave Breaking Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Prediction of Coastal Wave Breaking - Essay Example However the magnitude of such waves may be unequal. In the process, the energy from the wind is transferred to the wave and this is then carried on to great distances. In this process, a waver undergoes many transitions in its energy and characteristics when it interferes with other waves. The energy of such a wave might then increase or decrease when such interferences occur. In this phenomenon of energy transfer, the water molecules itself do not physically move with the wave but rather pass on the energy in the direction of the wave by just moving up and down. Creation of waves is a continuous process and therefore small and large waves can be seen almost continuously to be moving towards the shore. Such waves are created at any location in oceans irrespective to its relative location with the land mass however differential temperature play an important role in governing where shall the wind blow from and eventually plays a vital role in generation of waves. The temperatures of oceans also differ from each other and the kind of waves that can be seen in one differs much from the other. When the wave approaches landmass and as the sea floor begins to rise, the wave gradually changes its shape. Its physical form gets transformed and edge waves are generated by this interaction. When a swell reaches the coastline it also comes nearer to the sea floor which offers friction and results in eventually slowing down of the wave. The wave loses some part of its energy with this contact. With this retardation in speed, the period of the wave is shortened and thus the wave height increases and this creates more visible and turbulent crests in a wave. This phenomenon of slowing down of waves is called shoaling. The manner in which this happens is largely dependent upon the nature of the sea floor; especially it's gradient. This process of shoaling ultimately results into a situation where the top of the wave attains a considerable height and the forward movement of the upper part overtakes the wave and begins to spill foreword. This results into the disintegration of the wave formation and thus resulting into what is called a 'wave break'. This breaking of wave is dependent on many different factors such as the type of swell, the direction and intensity of wind, slope of sea bed and sea floor features like physical objects, vegetation etc. The factor of wind is the most vital in understanding and prediction how the wave shall break in what time of the day. When the offshore wind is blowing from the land side to the seaside, it prolongs the time that a wave takes to break. The wind blows to act against the top part of the wave and thus provides it a support. Therefore the wave takes longer time to break in comparison to what it would have taken in the absence of wind. In this case the wave creates more powerful break when it is achieved. The onshore wind that flows from sea side to the landside acts in the opposite manner to the phenomenon explained in the offshore winds and therefore it lessens the time that a wave needs to break by pushing the upper part of the wave. In a way, it aids the water to break even before it reaches the desired amount of rise so as to cause its naturally swelling. In this phenomenon it can be seen that many times the waves break before teaching the