physics

J. Lamar Worzel

J. Lamar Worzel is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand J. Lamar Worzel rather than just read about it. In short: J. Lamar Worzel (February 21, 1919 – December 26, 2008) was an American geophysicist known for his important contributions to underwater acoustics, underwater photography, and gravity measurements at sea.

Key takeaways

J. Lamar Worzel belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect J. Lamar Worzel to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of J. Lamar Worzel from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

J. Lamar Worzel (February 21, 1919 – December 26, 2008) was an American geophysicist known for his important contributions to underwater acoustics, underwater photography, and gravity measurements at sea.

Life Worzel was born on February 21, 1919, in Staten Island, New York. His father was a real-estate lawyer. Worzel, was a graduate of Lehigh University. There he met Dr. Maurice Ewing with whom he had a forty-year working relationship. He had a long and notable career as a research scientist and professor of oceanography at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution before following Ewing to the new Lamont Geological Observatory at Columbia University. He conducted annual research on many ships, including the Vema, which set the stage for the rapid advances in marine geology and geophysics in the late 1940s and 1950s. Along with Ewing and Alan Vine, he built the first camera designed to go to a depth of 3000 fathoms (5.5 km), in 1939. Together with Ewing, he discovered "shadow zones" in the oceans that were not accessible to sonar detection as well as "deep sound channels" that transmit low frequency sounds for long distances. Such discoveries were of military significance and the basis for the development of the Sofar channel program of the US Navy. Other achievements included the precise measurement of the earth's gravity field from surface ships, previously hampered by the inherent instability of ship platforms. In 1963 he led a team conducting an acoustic investigation which later found the remains of the nuclear powered submarine USS Thresher (SSN 593), lost after deep diving trials. He was a Gravity Specialist and Co-Chief Scientist and eventually Associate Director at Lamont Geological Observatory (now known as Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory), director of the Marine Science Institute Geophysical Laboratory at Galveston, Texas, from 1975–79, vice-president of Society of Exploration Geophysicists (1978–79), and principal investigator of the drilling program on the Blake plateau region off Jacksonville, Florida, in 1965. Worzel is a cofounder of the Palisades Geophysical Institute and served as its president from 1974 until 2002 when he disbanded it as he felt the research was too focused on weaponry. Worzel was a fellow of the American Geophysical Union. His work had both military and peaceful implications. With Ewing he established that the sea floor is not a former sunken continent but an original ocean basin. Today, the J. Lamar Worzel Assistant Scientist Fund is a US$1 million fund that supports young scientists pursuing careers in geophysical oceanography at Woods Hole. Additionally, the Maurice Ewing and J. Lamar Worzel Professorship of Geophysics at Columbia University in New York is named in his honor. He was married to the former Dorothy Crary.

Publications Propagation of Sound in the Ocean. [Three papers.] with Maurice Ewing & Chaim L. Pekeris Gravity and Geodesy: 1. Gravity Investigations of the Subduction Zone Pendulum Gravity Measurements at Sea Tertiary Tectonics of Central Hispaniola and the Adjacent Caribbean Sea with John W. Ladd New Concepts of Sea Floor Evolution Part 1 and 2 with Edward Bullard

References

External links Maurice Ewing and J. Lamar Worzel Graduate Student Fellowship Program Ocean Bottom Seismograph photo of Worzel and Ewing Photo: Scientific staff of Leg 1, Deep Sea Drilling Project, at Challenger Knoll Photo: Worzel and Ewing, Deep Sea Drilling Project, at Challenger Knoll

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with J. Lamar Worzel

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what J. Lamar Worzel claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to J. Lamar Worzel before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about J. Lamar Worzel ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of J. Lamar Worzel

In research: J. Lamar Worzel appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses J. Lamar Worzel in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: J. Lamar Worzel is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1919 births, 2008 deaths, 20th-century American physicists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for J. Lamar Worzel outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study J. Lamar Worzel in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what J. Lamar Worzel means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain J. Lamar Worzel out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is J. Lamar Worzel in simple terms?

Why does J. Lamar Worzel matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study J. Lamar Worzel?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on J. Lamar Worzel.