- John C. Swallow
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John Crossley Swallow Born October 11, 1923 Died December 3, 1994 (aged 71) John C. Swallow FRS[1] (born in 1923-1994) was an English oceanographer[2] who invented the Swallow float or sometimes referred to as a neutral buoyance float, a scientific drifting bottle created based on the method used by shipwrecked sailors who placed and sealed messages in bottles and hope that the said bottles will reach any inhabited shores so that people can help them.[2]
Swallow's invention
Swallow's float was invented so that it would go underwater but keep afloat at a particular depth. The people on board the ship that follows the bottle should be able to know its location at all times. The Swallow float was also created with the ability to make sound signals into the water. Such sound signals would be heard and located by scientists aboard the ship, including the location of the bottle itself. Because of this apparatus, scientists were able to learn how water flows in the deep ocean. Many surface currents, the Gulf Stream for example, have countercurrents or currents that flow under the surface currents. Countercurrents flow by going to the opposite direction but within the same path flow of the surface current. Because of Swallow's float, scientists were also able learn to that there is no steady water circulation within the deep ocean; this is because, sometimes, the water keeps going round and round in a huge whirling action – creating an eddy – which drifts along slowly.[2]
See also
References
- ^ Charnock, H. (1997). "John Crossley Swallow. 11 October 1923--3 December 1994: Elected ER.S 1968". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 43: 505. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1997.0028.
- ^ a b c "John C. Swallow, Measuring Ocean Currents, Movement of Ocean Water, Oceanography". The New Book of Knowledge, Grolier Incorporated. 1977., pages 33 [letter O] and 568 [letter S].
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