Inside The Navy's Indoor Ocean

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The US Navy has an indoor ocean that can simulate any wave in the world. This video is sponsored by Brilliant. You can get started for free, or the first 200 people to sign up via https://brilliant.org/veritasium get 20% off a yearly subscription. In 2025, we launched the Elements of Truth game on Kickstarter and were thrilled by the response. We’re now in the final stages of production, with Kickstarter rewards shipping soon. If you missed the campaign, you can now pre-order the retail edition through our new website here - https://ve42.co/ocean Special thanks to our Patreon supporters! Join the community to help us keep our videos free, forever: https://ve42.co/PatreonDEB ▀▀▀ Thanks to Kelley Stirling and the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division for the visit. Thanks to Miguel Quintero and Capt. Todd E. Hutchison for talking to us about the important work going on in the Maneuvering and Seakeeping Basin. Thanks to Dr. Georgy Manucharyan at the University of Washington for his help in understanding ocean waves. ▀▀▀ References: Webb, P. (2017). Introduction to Oceanography. Chapter 10: Waves. Online OER textbook. – https://ve42.co/Webb2017 Stewart, R. (2008). Introduction to Physical Oceanography. – https://ve42.co/Stewart2008 van den Bremer, T. S. & Breivik, Ø. (2018). Stokes drift. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A. – https://ve42.co/Bremer2017 Monismith, S. (2020). Stokes drift: Theory and experiments. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 884, F1. – https://ve42.co/Monismith2020 Young, I. R. (1999). Wind Generated Ocean Waves. Elsevier. p. 83. – https://ve42.co/Young1999 Wright, P. Island Physics. 4.2 Formation of Waves – https://ve42.co/IslandPhysics American Bureau of Shipping. (2016). Guidance Notes on Selecting Design Wave by Long Term Stochastic Method. – https://ve42.co/ABS2016 James, S. & Stull, R. (2019). Wave Characteristics. UBC ATSC 113 - Weather for Sailing, Flying & Snow Sports. – https://ve42.co/James2019 Garrison, T. (2009). Oceanography: An Invitation to Marine Science (7th ed). – https://ve42.co/Garrison2009 ▀▀▀ Special thanks to our Patreon supporters: James Sanger, Louis Lebbos, Elliot Miller, Brian Busbee, Jerome Barakos M.D., Amadeo Bee, TTST, Balkrishna Heroor, Chris LaClair, John H. Austin Jr., OnlineBookClub.org, Matthew Gonzalez, Eric Sexton, John Kiehl, Diffbot, Gnare, Dave Kircher, Burt Humburg, Blake Byers, Evgeny Skvortsov, Meekay, Bill Linder, Paul Peijzel, Josh Hibschman, Mac Malkawi, Mike Schneider, John Bauer, Jim Buckmaster, Juan Benet, Sunil Nagaraj, Richard Sundvall, Lee Redden, Stephen Wilcox, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Michael Krugman, Cy 'kkm' K'Nelson, Sam Lutfi ▀▀▀ Written by Derek Muller & Emily Zhang Edited by Fabio Albertelli Animation by Ivy Tello & Mike Radjabov Filmed by Derek Muller & Emily Zhang Additional video/photos supplied by Pond5 & Getty Images Music from Epidemic Sound Produced by Derek Muller, Petr Lebedev, and Emily Zhang