They have learned how to model them mathematically, starting with simple harmonic oscillators, describing amplitude, frequency, polarization and phase and have moved up to complex wave motions in a variety of media, in a variety of modes, and even in empty space. They have succeeded in manipulating this knowledge and can use waves as a means of studying nature itself, created interferometers and electrical oscillators and other technologies that exploit this knowledge, and they have even come up with totally alternative quantum-based particle theories for applications that cannot be modeled using traditional waveforms.

Surfers know waves, too. They live and play on them and in them, ride them and predict their behavior. They understand them at a visceral, personal level. They take their lives in their hands around them and have the ability to manipulate and use them and enjoy them, become part of them in a way the physicist cannot. Their understanding is instinctive, physical, automatic, non-intellectual and emotional, but no less real than that of the scientist. It too must be learned with an arduous apprenticeship. It can be argued that they do no better, indeed, much worse, than seals or dolphins who are even more expert surfers than they. True, but these are beasts living in their own environment with the aid of millions of years of evolution to prepare them for riding the surf. The human is not a marine mammal, he has had to teach himself all this, perhaps with only some instruction from his companions, in just a few short years. Taking this into account, his accomplishment is much more remarkable than the creatures born to the surf.

The question is, who knows waves "better", the surfer or the scientist? Who actually understands the "real" wave? And how many other ways are there to know waves?