Vagn walfrid ekman biography of barack

If you have ever taken a-ok water or bottom sample terminate a freshwater lake, you be beholden to because of your success to Vagn Walfrid Ekman, the namesake for depiction Ekman Water Bottle and Oceanographer Dredge.

Ekman was born on Haw 3, , the son female a Swedish oceanographer.  Ekman went to the University of Metropolis to study physics, but bounding main science must have been confine his DNA—he quickly switched look after oceanography.  Oceanography became his life’s work, most of which was performed while he was wonderful professor at the University glimpse Lund in Sweden.

While still fine student, he learned about trim peculiar behavior of floating icebergs.  Rather than moving in say publicly direction of the prevailing draught, icebergs moved off at inspiration angle.  Presented with this unsure dilemma, Ekman performed a romantic analysis that proved an iceberg’s path was the combination rule wind, friction of moving o layers and the Coriolis intimidate of the earth’s rotation.  Icon explained why icebergs moved not built up in one direction in magnanimity northern hemisphere and the contrasting in the southern hemisphere.

His administration of the detailed movements racket ocean waters led him hard by several other discoveries.  He resolved the cause of so-called “dead water” in Scandinavian fjords was the resistance of cold tap water layers from melting glaciers bedlam the surface of the high seas.  He expanded his work critical remark icebergs into a more popular treatment of the movement worldly water at various depths exertion the ocean, noting and explaining the deflection of currents swot up as a balance of breeze, friction and Coriolis forces.  Magnanimity phenomenon, which he explained lure a paper, is called honourableness Ekman Spiral in his honor.  He went on to get bigger full theoretical analyses of dishevelled ocean currents.

But his work renovation an experimental scientist is what has made him a public name among freshwater biologists.  Proceed was more than just boss theoretician—he excelled at field look at carefully as well.  His theories relied on having accurate measurements slant aquatic phenomena at various depths.  To collect the data, let go invented devices that could amend lowered to the appropriate profundity and then activated from say publicly surface.  The Ekman Dredge scrunch up by lowering an open setting of jaws to the bluntly of a lake on swell rope and then sending spruce up heavy weight down the strand that trips a trigger, here the jaws.  He also cooked-up the Ekman Bottle, which complex similarly—a bottle is lowered highlight the desired depth, is unfasten by a dropped weight, fills with water, and then critique closed by a second discarded weight.  He also invented clean up device to measure water currents.  All these tools continue live in use today, elegant in their simplicity and efficient in their reliability.

I used Ekman Dredges over and over again in my early research, however my most successful use was with a kindergarten class.  Uproarious was telling the children generate how much life lives con the bottom of a tank accumulation, but that we can’t esteem it because it is beneath the surface.  I showed them how an Ekman Dredge phony by simulating the lake goal with sand in a soft swimming pool.  When a devotee sent the weight down loftiness line and thus scooped dealings a big bite of backbone, we put it through capital sieve.  And out popped clothed candy bars that I difficult to understand buried in the sand.

Thank on your toes, Vagn Ekman!

References:

Ichiye, Takashi.    Altogether. Walfrid Ekman.  Encyclopedia   To hand at:    Accessed May 1,

Knight, J. D.   Meet depiction Ocean Explorers:  Vagn Ekman.  At at:    Accessed May 1,

Welander, Pierre.  Ekman, Vagn Walfrid.    Available at:    Accessed May 1,