science

Owen Harper

Owen Harper is a science 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 Owen Harper rather than just read about it. In short: Dr Owen James Harper is a fictional character played by Burn Gorman, and a regular in the BBC television series Torchwood, a spin-off from the long-running series Doctor Who. The character last appeared onscreen in the Series 2 finale, "Exit Wounds".

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Dr Owen James Harper is a fictional character played by Burn Gorman, and a regular in the BBC television series Torchwood, a spin-off from the long-running series Doctor Who. The character last appeared onscreen in the Series 2 finale, "Exit Wounds". Within the series' narrative, Owen is the medical officer and a field agent for Torchwood Three, a team of alien-hunters based in Cardiff. In his private life, Owen is a narcissistic womanizer with a long history of sexual partners, including colleagues Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) and Suzie Costello (Indira Varma), but remained indifferent to the affections of colleague Toshiko Sato (Naoko Mori). The show's second series would see Owen experience death, only to be resurrected and forced to adjust to the uncertainty of his undead existence, before ultimately being destroyed in his final appearance.

Appearances

Television Owen is introduced in the first episode of Torchwood in 2006, as the sarcastic and womanising medical officer for Torchwood Three; the first episode sees him recreationally use alien technology to get a woman and her boyfriend to sleep with him. Owen's first centric episode comes in "Ghost Machine", when an alien device makes him experience the rape and murder of a girl in 1963, which drives him to seek revenge for her. The next episode sees him kiss teammate Gwen (Eve Myles) in the midst of a Cyberman attack on the Hub, and as the series continues they continue a destructive affair which Gwen conceals from boyfriend Rhys Williams (Kai Owen). Owen remains oblivious to the devotion of teammate Toshiko (Naoko Mori), but experiences real love with a time-lost 1953 pilot Diane (Louise Delamere) and is distraught when she disappears in an attempt to return to her time, and despondent over this, Owen ends the affair with Gwen. Owen investigates a men's 'fight club' which uses alien Weevils, and Owen attempts to allow one to almost devour him; in the episode's dénouement, however, Torchwood's captive Weevil mysteriously cowers in fear from Owen. When Captain Jack (John Barrowman) and Toshiko are lost to the past, Owen as second-in-command takes control and fights with Ianto (Gareth David-Lloyd) over whether to open the Rift and 'rescue them'; Owen truly intends to rescue Diane, and is successful in opening the Rift and saving his teammates, but with consequences, for which Jack fires him. In the series finale, the opened Rift causes global chaos. An apparition of Diane sent by Bilis Manger (Murray Melvin) convinces Owen to lead a mutiny against Jack to open the Rift yet again; Owen goes so far as to shoot Jack twice in the head. Having unwittingly released the demon Abaddon, who is eventually defeated by a resurrected Jack, Owen is shocked to discover that Jack offers him his forgiveness. The second series begins with Gwen now acting as the team's leader following Jack's mysterious disappearance, and the team now work more closely on field missions in an effort to compensate for this shortfall. Toshiko finds the courage to ask Owen on a date, and he does eventually accept. Shortly afterwards however, on a mission assisted by Dr Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) of UNIT, Owen is shot dead by Dr Aaron Copley (Alan Dale). Not willing to let Owen die, Jack tracks down and uses the mysterious resurrection gauntlet to restore Owen to life: however, this glove works differently from the one from previous episodes, and Owen is left in a permanent state of living death. Owen is left to despair at his inability to eat, to drink, to enjoy sex and feel the beat of his own heart or heal from wounds, with the final point becoming a logistical concern after he breaks a finger on one of his hands, rendering that hand permanently limited as the bones will never mend. Despite being dead, he is forced to exercise regularly to avoid the onset of rigor mortis. His despair at his undead state causes Owen to become severely depressed and even attempt suicide, via drowning, only to find that he has no breath so it doesn't work. Mysteriously, Weevils also begin to follow Owen as if in worship. Owen is discharged again from Torchwood, but returns to his position after proving his sustained value as a field agent, with certain stealth advantages due to not feeling pain or having a heat signature. In subsequent episodes, two alien species ignore Owen's presence as being dead makes him of no use to them. The flashback-centric episode "Fragments" sheds light on how Owen came to join Torchwood: Owen's fiancée Katie (Andrea Lowe) developed a parasitic alien tumor, which brought him to encounter Jack when she died; Jack notes Owen's determination and medical brilliance, and so hires him. In addition to the standard BMBS degree of British physicians, Owen holds a dissertation-based MD. Despite his existential angst in facing life after death, the second series finale sees Owen die a second time, when he is caught in a nuclear meltdown caused by Jack's brother Gray (Lachlan Nieboer). This occurs at the same time as Toshiko is dying from a gunshot wound, and she and Owen spend their last minutes lamenting that they never formed a relationship. Though Owen does not appear again, in the 2008 Doctor Who/Torchwood crossover "The Stolen Earth", Gwen vows to keep fighting in the face of a Dalek, for Tosh and Owen's memory, and in the miniseries Children of Earth (2009) it is shown that Gwen keeps a photograph of Tosh and Owen on her desk. In 2011 episode "The New World", from Torchwood: Miracle Day, Jack uses the alias of "Owen Harper, FBI" in an American hospital.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Owen Harper

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Owen Harper claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, 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 Owen Harper 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 Owen Harper 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 Owen Harper

In research: Owen Harper appears in science 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 Owen Harper 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: Owen Harper is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics British male characters in television, Deceased fictional characters, Fictional LGBTQ characters in drama television series, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Owen Harper 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 Owen Harper in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Owen Harper 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 Owen Harper out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Owen Harper in simple terms?

Why does Owen Harper matter?

Because it connects several science 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 Owen Harper?

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 Owen Harper.