The Physics of Waves: From Ocean Swells to Light and Gold

A wave is a disturbance that travels through space or a material and carries energy from one place to another, without carrying the material itself along. The ocean off Miami, the music in your headphones and the sunlight on your skin are all waves, and the same simple mathematics, built on the sine wave, describes every one of them. Once you see it, you start finding waves everywhere, even in a ring.

What is a wave, really?

Stand on Miami Beach and watch a swell roll toward the shore. It looks as if the water is rushing toward you. In fact, in deep water each bit of water mostly moves in a small circle as the wave passes, then returns close to where it started. What travels toward you is energy, given to the sea by wind far away. The water is the messenger, not the message.

The same is true for sound. When someone speaks, air molecules push on their neighbors and spring back. No breeze crosses the room, yet the words arrive. Physicists call these mechanical waves, because they need a material to travel through.

Amplitude, wavelength and frequency explained

Every wave can be described with a few simple ideas:

• Amplitude: how tall the wave is, from its middle line to its crest. In sound, bigger amplitude means louder. In light, it means brighter.
• Wavelength: the distance from one crest to the next.
• Frequency: how many crests pass a point each second, measured in hertz.
• Speed: how fast the pattern travels. It equals frequency multiplied by wavelength, one of the most useful equations in physics.

Change one and the others respond. That single relationship connects ocean swells, a violin string and the radio in your car.

The Wavy Diamond Bracelet is a gold wave that rises and falls around the wrist, crest after crest, in 18K recycled gold with ethically sourced natural diamonds. When two are stacked, you can see two waves riding together.

Why is the sine wave so special?

The sine wave is the smoothest, simplest wave there is. It appears whenever something swings back and forth around a resting point, a pendulum, a spring, a guitar string. Physicists call this simple harmonic motion, and its graph over time is a perfect sine curve.

Here is the part that still amazes me. The French mathematician Joseph Fourier showed that complex repeating signals can be built by adding together simple sine waves of different frequencies. A chord, a voice, even the rhythm of tides can be broken down into sines. In a sense, the sine wave is the alphabet of vibration.

This is the idea behind the Wavy collection. I have always done art and science side by side, with a background in physics and biology, and the sine and cosine waves I love became gold. You can read how that happened in how a wave became a ring.

What happens when two waves meet?

Waves do something solid objects cannot: they pass through each other. Where they overlap, they simply add up. This is called superposition.

• When two crests meet, they build a bigger crest. This is constructive interference.
• When a crest meets a trough, they cancel. This is destructive interference.

Noise cancelling headphones use exactly this. A tiny microphone listens to the outside noise, and the headphones play a wave that is its mirror image, so the two cancel before they reach your ear. Interference of light also creates the rainbow shimmer on a soap bubble, and light waves bending around tiny spheres create the flashes of color in opal, which we explored in why opals flash color.

Light is a wave too

Light is an electromagnetic wave. It needs no material at all and crosses the vacuum of space from the Sun to Miami in about eight minutes. Visible light is only a narrow band of wavelengths, roughly 400 to 700 nanometers, from violet to red. Our eyes read wavelength as color.

When light enters a diamond, it slows down and bends, and different wavelengths bend by slightly different amounts. That spreading of colors is what gives a well cut diamond its fire. The full story is in why diamonds sparkle.

The Wavy Diamond Hoop Earrings bring both kinds of waves together: a curve of gold shaped like a wave, set with diamonds that turn light waves into sparkle.

Waves as a way of living

Physics also offers a gentle lesson. A wave is never only high. Its crests exist because of its troughs, and the pattern keeps moving forward through both. A life you choose for yourself has the same rhythm: brave seasons, quiet seasons, and the momentum that carries you through. That is why I think the wave is one of the most honest shapes you can wear.

The Wavy Diamond Ring traces that motion around the finger in 18K recycled gold and ethically sourced natural diamonds. Margaret Krinetz Fine Jewelry, handmade in Tel Aviv and shipped to Miami, makes each one to order.

Frequently asked questions

Do ocean waves move water toward the shore?
Mostly no. In deep water, the water moves in small circles while the energy travels forward. Near the shore, waves slow, steepen and break, and then water does rush up the beach.

Is the Wavy collection based on real sine waves?
Yes. It was inspired by the sine and cosine waves I love, translated into hand shaped gold.

How long does delivery to Miami take?
Every piece is handmade to order in 4 to 6 weeks, then shipped by DHL Express in 3 to 5 business days. Shipping is free over $1,500.

Which wave feels like you right now, a crest or a quiet trough before the next rise? Tell me, and if you want to wear your own wave, write to me through the contact page.