A world champion surfer and a fluid mechanics specialist teamed up to create an artificial wave in a landlocked lake in central California that has astonished the surfing world. Kelly Slater, who has won the world surfing title an unprecedented 11 times, for more than a decade worked with Adam Fincham from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles to sculpt their vision of a rare natural phenomenon: a perfect wave. Fincham and his team used supercomputers to simulate the wave, which they then created in a laboratory wave tank. But small waves in a tank can be modeled with linear equations: What you put in comes out. When they moved to the artificial lake, which creates the wave by pulling a carefully crafted metal blade called a hydrofoil through the water, they had to adjust for a variety of nonlinear forces, like oscillations in the water body and turbulence. The end result, unveiled at a mock surf contest in September, is a wave that stands up to 2 meters high and alternates between a face that surfers can carve and a barrel that they can ride inside. The backers of “Kelly’s wave” hope to use it in professional contests and also to build resorts around it. If their plans come true, it will fundamentally alter where people can surf, the learning process, how professionals train, and The Endless Summer search for perfection.

中文翻译：

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完美的波浪

一位世界冠军冲浪者和一位流体力学专家联手在加利福尼亚州中部的一个内陆湖中创造了一个人造波浪，震惊了冲浪界。凯利·斯莱特 (Kelly Slater) 史无前例地 11 次赢得世界冲浪冠军，十多年来，他与洛杉矶南加州大学的亚当·芬查姆 (Adam Fincham) 合作，塑造了他们对罕见自然现象的看法：完美的波浪。Fincham 和他的团队使用超级计算机来模拟波浪，然后他们在实验室波浪池中创建了波浪。但是坦克中的小波浪可以用线性方程建模：你输入的东西就会出来。当他们移动到人工湖时，通过将精心制作的称为水翼的金属叶片拉过水面来产生波浪，他们必须针对各种非线性力进行调整，如水体的振荡和湍流。最终结果在 9 月的模拟冲浪比赛中揭晓，波浪高达 2 米，在冲浪者可以雕刻的脸和他们可以在里面骑行的桶之间交替。“凯利浪潮”的支持者希望在职业比赛中使用它，并围绕它建造度假村。如果他们的计划成真，它将从根本上改变人们可以冲浪的地方、学习过程、专业人士的训练方式以及无尽的夏天对完美的追求。