Worzel.

This is coolbert:

Even the obituaries can provide gist for blog entries:

Here, from the Chicago Tribune of yesterday:

"LEGACIES"

"Obituaries"

"Undersea acoustics expert"

"Physicist's work used to track submarines"

J. Lamar WORZEL 1919-2008.

"J. Lamar Worzel, the Colombia University physicist who used the emerging science of acoustics to explore the ocean floor and help U.S. submarines evade and track enemies, has died. He was 89."

An innovator, experimenter, pioneer, builder of Rube Goldberg like contraptions that worked.

Among his discoveries were:

"the early discoveries was the existence of what they called shadow zones, areas of temperature and pressure that reflected sounds to the surface rather than permitting them to pass through."

"also identified the 'deep sound channel', a narrow zone about 3,000 feet below the surface that transmitted sounds with unusual clarity."

"This discovery became the basis of the Navy's vast sound fixing and ranging program and its successors . . . installed at key locations around the globe to identify and track submarines."

Advantages as enjoyed by American submariners during the Cold War were in large measure due to the work of J. Lamar? I think so!

Thank you J. Lamar. Rest in well deserved peace!

coolbert.