Grigor,a Russian schoolmate, just told me on Facebook I was wrong about the seventh wave. (Also blogged here - Today's Find (Actually it was the day before I started the new blog, but I wanted to be dramatic.)
He had been to an art exhibition in St. Petersburg of this painter (of whom I have to confess, I have never heard) called Aivazovsky. There was a painting called the Ninth Wave and on the notes it said " In nautical lore, the ninth wave is the deadliest."
So I decided to do a bit of online exploring and found this painter has also done a painting called "Tenth Wave" (At the moment I am finding it difficult to see the difference between them, but perhaps they are a series?)
And then I came across Sir Thomas Browne's Vulgar Errors VII.xvii: - Of some others No. 2. " That fluctus Decumanus, or the tenth wave is greater and more dangerous then any other, some no doubt will be offended if we deny; and hereby we shall seem to contradict antiquity........ "and he goes on "Which notwithstanding is evidently false; nor can it be made out by observation either upon the shore or the Ocean, as we have with diligence explored in both. And surely in vain we expect a regularity in the waves of the Sea, or in the particular motions thereof..."
So no answers - another one for Bang goes the Theory to ignore?
