Imagine a layer of water with a flat base that has a small step on its surface, dividing a region in which the depth of the water is uniformly equal to D from a region in which it is uniformly equal to D(1 + ε), with ε << 1. Let the water in the shallower region flow toward the step with some uniform speed V, as Figure 6A suggests, and let this speed be just sufficient to hold the step in the same position so that the flow pattern is a steady one. The continuity condition (i.e., the condition that as much water flows out to the left per unit time as flows in from the right) indicates that in the deeper region the speed of the water is V(1 + ε)⁻¹. Hence by applying Bernoulli’s law to the points marked P and Q in the diagram, which lie on the same streamline and at both of which the pressure is atmospheric, one may deduce that

This result shows that, if the water in the shallower region is in fact stationary (see Figure 6B), the step advances over it with the speed V that equation (138) describes, and it reveals incidentally that behind the step the deeper water follows up with speed V[1 - (1 + ε)⁻¹] ≈ εV. The argument may readily be extended to disturbances of the surface that are undulatory rather than steplike. Provided that the distance between successive crests—a distance known as the wavelength and denoted by λ—is much greater than the depth of the water, D, and provided that its amplitude is very much less than D, a wave travels over stationary water at a speed given by (138). Because their speed does not depend on wavelength, the waves are said to be nondispersive.

Evidently waves that are approaching a shelving beach should slow down as D diminishes. If they are approaching it at an angle, the slowing-down effect bends, or refracts, the wave crests so that they are nearly parallel to the shore by the time they ultimately break.

Suppose now that a small step of height εD (ε << 1) is traveling over stationary water of uniform depth D and that behind it is a second step of much the same height traveling in the same direction. Because the second step (suggested by a dotted line in Figure 6B) is traveling on a base that is moving at εSquare root of√(gD) and because the thickness of that base is (1 + ε)D rather than D, the speed of the second step is approximately (1 + 3ε/2)Square root of√(gD). Since this is greater than Square root of√(gD), the second step is bound to catch up with the first. Hence, if there are a succession of infinitesimal steps that raise the depth continuously from D to some value D′, which differs significantly from D, then the ramp on the surface is bound to become steeper as it advances. It may be shown that if D′ exceeds about 1.3D, the ramp ultimately becomes a vertical step of finite height and that the step then “breaks.” A finite step that has broken dissipates energy as heat in the resultant foaming motion, and Bernoulli’s equation is no longer applicable to it. A simple argument based on conservation of momentum rather than energy, however, suffices to show that its velocity of propagation is

Tidal bores, which may be observed on some estuaries, are examples on the large scale of the sort of phenomena to which (139) applies. Examples on a smaller scale include the hydraulic jumps that are commonly seen below weirs and sluice gates where a smooth stream of water suddenly rises at a foaming front. In this case, (139) describes the speed of the water, since the front itself is more or less stationary.

When water is shallow but not extremely shallow, so that correction terms of the order of (D/λ)² are significant, waves of small amplitude become slightly dispersive (see below Waves on deep water). In this case, a localized disturbance on the surface of a river or canal, which is guided by the banks in such a way that it can propagate in one direction only, is liable to spread as it propagates. If its amplitude is not small, however, the tendency to spread due to dispersion may in special circumstances be subtly balanced by the factors that cause waves of relatively large amplitude to form bores, and the result is a localized hump in the surface, of symmetrical shape, which does not spread at all. The phenomenon was first observed on a canal near Edinburgh in 1834 by a Scottish engineer named Scott Russell; he later wrote a graphic account of following on horseback, for well over a kilometre, a “large solitary elevation . . . which continued its course along the channel apparently without change of form.” What Scott Russell saw is now called a soliton. Solitons on canals can have various widths, but the smaller the width the larger the height must be and the faster the soliton travels. Thus, if a high, narrow soliton is formed behind a low, broad one, it will catch up with the low one. It turns out that, when the high soliton does so, it passes through the low one and emerges with its shape unchanged (see Figure 7).

It is now recognized that many of the nonlinear differential equations that appear in diverse branches of physics have solutions of large amplitude corresponding to solitons and that the remarkable capacity of solitons for surviving encounters with other solitons is universal. This discovery has stimulated much interest among mathematicians and physicists, and understanding of solitons is expanding rapidly.

Compressible flow in gases

Compressible flow refers to flow at velocities that are comparable to, or exceed, the speed of sound. The compressibility is relevant because at such velocities the variations in density that occur as the fluid moves from place to place cannot be ignored.

Suppose that the fluid is a gas at a low enough pressure for the ideal equation of state, equation (118), to apply and that its thermal conductivity is so poor that the compressions and rarefactions undergone by each element of the gas may be treated as adiabatic (see above). In this case, it follows from equation (120) that the change of density accompanying any small change in pressure, dp, is such that

This makes it possible to integrate the right-hand side of equation (131), and one thereby arrives at a version of Bernoulli’s law for a steady compressible flow of gases which states thatis constant along a streamline. An equivalent statement is thatis constant along a streamline. It is worth noting that, when a gas flows through a nozzle or through a shock front (see below), the flow, though adiabatic, may not be reversible in the thermodynamic sense. Thus the entropy of the gas is not necessarily constant in such flow, and as a consequence the application of equation (120) is open to question. Fortunately, the result expressed by (141) or (142) can be established by arguments that do not involve integration of (131). It is valid for steady adiabatic flow whether this is reversible or not.

Bernoulli’s law in the form of (142) may be used to estimate the variation of temperature with height in the Earth’s atmosphere. Even on the calmest day the atmosphere is normally in motion because convection currents (see below Convection) are set up by heat derived from sunlight that is released at the Earth’s surface. The currents are indeed adiabatic to a good approximation, and their velocity is generally small enough for the term v² in (142) to be negligible. One can therefore deduce without more ado that the temperature of the atmosphere should fall off in a linear fashion—i.e., that

Here β is used to represent the temperature lapse rate, and the value suggested for this quantity, (Mg/C_p), is close to 10° C per kilometre for dry air.

This prediction is not exactly fulfilled in practice. Within the troposphere (i.e., to the heights of about 10 kilometres to which convection currents extend), the mean temperature does decrease with height in a linear fashion, but β is only about 6.5° C per kilometre. It is the water vapour in the atmosphere, which condenses as the air rises and cools, that lowers the lapse rate to this value by increasing the effective value of C_p. The fact that the lapse rate is smaller for moist air than for dry air means that a stream of moist air which passes over a mountain range and which deposits its moisture as rain or snow at the summit is warmer when it descends to sea level on the other side of the range than it was when it started. The foehn wind of the Alps owes its warmth to this effect.

The variation of the pressure of the atmosphere with height may be estimated in terms of β, using the equation

This is obtained by integration of (123), using (118) and (143).

In the form of equation (141), Bernoulli’s law may be used to calculate the speed of sound in gases. The argument is directly analogous to the one applied in the previous section to waves on shallow water—and, indeed, the diagrams in Figure 6 can serve to illustrate the argument here too, if they are regarded as plots of gas density (or else of pressure or temperature, which go hand in hand with density in adiabatic flow) versus position. The results of the argument will be stated without proof. If there exists an infinitesimal step in the density of the gas, it will remain stationary provided that the gas flows uniformly through it toward the region of higher density, with a velocity

If the gas is stationary, then (145) describes the velocity with which the step moves. It also describes the speed of propagation of the sort of undulatory variation of density that constitutes a sound wave of fixed frequency or pitch. Because the speed of sound is independent of pitch, sound waves, like waves on shallow water, are nondispersive. This is just as well. It is only because there is no dispersion that one can understand the words of a distant speaker or listen to a symphony orchestra with pleasure from the back of an auditorium as well as from the front.

It should be noted that the formula for the speed of sound in gases may be proved in other ways, and Newton came close to it a century before Bernoulli’s time. However, because Newton failed to appreciate the distinction between adiabatic and isothermal flow, his answer lacked the factor γ occurring in (145). The first person to correct this error was Pierre-Simon Laplace.

The above statements apply to density steps or undulations, the amplitude of which is infinitesimal, and they need some modification if the amplitude is large. In the first place it is found, as for waves on shallow water and for very much the same reasons, that, where two small density steps are moving parallel to one another, the second is bound to catch up with the first. It follows that, if there exists a propagating region in which the density rises in a continuous fashion from ρ to ρ′, where (ρ′ - ρ) is not necessarily small, then the width of this region is bound to diminish as time passes. Ultimately a shock front develops over which the density—and hence the pressure and temperature—rises almost discontinuously. There are processes within the shock front, vaguely analogous on the molecular scale to the foaming of a breaking water wave, by which energy is dissipated as heat. The speed of propagation, V_sh, of a shock front in a gas that is stationary in front of it may be expressed in terms of V_s and V_s′, the velocities of small-amplitude sound waves in front of the shock and behind it, respectively, by the equation

Thus, if the shock is a strong one (ρ′ >> ρ), V_sh may be significantly greater than both V_s and V_s′.

Even the gentlest sound wave, in which density and pressure initially oscillate in a smooth and sinusoidal fashion, develops into a succession of weak shock fronts in time. More noticeable shock fronts are a feature of the flow of gases at supersonic speeds through the nozzles of jet engines and accompany projectiles that are moving through stationary air at supersonic speeds. In certain circumstances when a supersonic aircraft is following a curved path, the accompanying shock wave may accidentally reinforce itself in places and thereby become offensively noticeable as a “sonic boom,” which may break windowpanes and cause other damage. Strong shock fronts also occur immediately after explosions, of course, and when windowpanes are broken by an explosion, the broken glass tends to fall outward rather than inward. Such is the case because the glass is sucked out by the relatively low density and pressure that succeed the shock itself.

The diagrams in Figure 8 show a well-known construction attributed to the Austrian physicist Ernst Mach that explains the origin of the shock front accompanying a supersonic projectile. The circular arcs in this figure represent cross sections through spherical disturbances that are spreading with speed V_s from centres (S′, S″, etc.), which mark the position of the moving source S at the time when they were emitted. If the source is something like the tip of an arrow, which disturbs the air by parting it as it travels along but which is inaudible when stationary, then each “disturbance” due to some infinitesimal displacement of the tip is a spherical shell of infinitesimal thickness within which a small radial velocity has been imparted to the air. There is an infinite number of such disturbances, overlapping one another, of which only a handful are represented in Figure 8. When the velocity of the source, U, is less than V_s (Figure 8A), the result of adding them together is the sort of steady backflow that is to be expected around a moving obstacle, and there is no sound emission in the normal sense; the source remains inaudible. When U exceeds V_s, however, the spherical disturbances reinforce one another, as Figure 8B shows, on a conical caustic surface, which makes an angle of sin⁻¹ (U/V) to the line of travel of the source, and it is on this surface that a shock front is to be expected. The cone becomes sharper as the source speeds up.