Explaining the physics of tsunamis to undergraduate and non-physics students

@article{Margaritondo2007ExplainingTP,
  title={Explaining the physics of tsunamis to undergraduate and non-physics students},
  author={Giorgio Margaritondo},
  journal={European Journal of Physics},
  year={2007},
  volume={26},
  pages={401-407}
}
After the recent devastating tsunami in southern Asia, I tried to find a simple way to present the physics of this phenomenon to students—in particular, the origin of the dispersion relation and the consequent wave properties. Being unable to locate a suitable source for a truly elementary approach, I developed the simple derivation presented here by extending to shallow-water waves a clever capillary wave model recently developed by Behroozi and Podolefsky (2001 Eur. J. Phys. 23 225). The main… 
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