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I know x-ray is dangerous because it has short wavelength and hence has high energy. But I often heard that tsunami wave is more destructive than normal waves because it has longer wavelength and has much more energy.

So my question is, why would the tsunami be dangerous because of long wavelength instead of short wavelength, isn't the things with shorter wavelength carries more energy? What is the misconception here?

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    $\begingroup$ Aren't tsunami usually caused by short dramatic events like earth quakes? If it's a single pulse I don't know how you can even characterize the wave as having a wave length. $\endgroup$
    – user273872
    Commented May 25, 2017 at 2:37
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    $\begingroup$ What I remember people saying is that it's destructive because of the amplitude of that pulse. That brings the height of the wave way up and when it is hitting the shore, so lots of water goes up and washes everything away. $\endgroup$
    – user273872
    Commented May 25, 2017 at 2:40
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    $\begingroup$ @user273872 tsunami are dangerous because of the amount of water in the wave. Typically at sea they are very low (<1m) but very long (<km) which means a very large volume. When they reach shore this wave presses up against the front edge giving the much higher destructive wave. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Beckett
    Commented May 25, 2017 at 3:13

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One misconception is that a tsunami is not a photon. They are completely different phenomena. The energy in a photon is quantized and is proportional to its wavelength. The energy in a tsunami is not quantized.

Another misconception is that destructiveness depends only on energy. It depends on the mechanism of destruction. If there is no interaction, there is no transfer of energy and no destruction, however much energy is involved.

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a tsunami would be more dangerous due to the fact that there is more water behind the wave that would bring in more water with more force washing away buildings and lives. a thin tsunami would not be as devastating as a thick one because there is less force behind the wave.

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