physics

Owen Martin Phillips

Owen Martin Phillips 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 Owen Martin Phillips rather than just read about it. In short: Owen Martin Phillips (December 30, 1930 – October 13, 2010) was a U.S. physical oceanographer and geophysicist who spent most of his career at the Johns Hopkins University. Early life Owen Phillips was born at Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia a suburb of Sydney, the son of Richard Keith and Madeline Constance (née Lofts) Phillips.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Owen Martin Phillips (December 30, 1930 – October 13, 2010) was a U.S. physical oceanographer and geophysicist who spent most of his career at the Johns Hopkins University.

Early life Owen Phillips was born at Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia a suburb of Sydney, the son of Richard Keith and Madeline Constance (née Lofts) Phillips. His father fought in the Gallipoli Campaign during World War I. In 1936 the family moved to the country town of Tamworth where most of his primary education occurred.

Education He entered the University of Sydney in the fall of 1948. He majored in applied mathematics and physics, graduating with first-class honours in 1952 and sharing the John Coutts Prize for general proficiency in science with J. Stewart Turner. He then moved to the famed Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University, from which he received his Ph.D.

Professional work With the exception of a brief stint in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge, most of Phillips career was spent at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. His early career was largely concerned with the physics of the upper ocean, particular regarding ways in which energy was transferred from the wind into the ocean interior. A particularly important paper in this respect was his 1957 work in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, proposing that ocean surface waves were generated by turbulent eddies in the atmosphere being swept over the surface in such a way that they resonated with surface disturbances. In later work he developed a mathematical theory that built on ideas of resonance for explaining how energy in waves was transferred from short to large scales. He also worked on understanding how this energy was transferred to the ocean mixed layer, thus constraining the amount of stirring within this layer (Kato and Phillips, 1969). He was awarded the 1974 Sverdrup Gold Medal of the American Meteorological Society "for his outstanding studies of both wave phenomena and turbulence in the upper ocean, and in particular for his contributions to the theory of ocean-wave generation." In addition to primary area of scientific research, Phillips worked to synthesize knowledge within the broader field of geophysics in a number of books. In 1965 he published a monograph on the dynamics of the upper ocean which received the Adams Prize from the Royal Society. Translated into Russian and Chinese, with a second edition appearing in 1977, it was an important textbook in a field which at the time had few such works. He also worked with others in the Johns Hopkins department to study flow in porous media, publishing an important monograph on this subject in 1991.

Honors and awards Adams Prize (1964) Fellow of the Royal Society (1968) Sverdrup Gold Medal Award (1974) Fellow of the American Meteorological Society (1980) Elected U.S. National Academy of Engineering (1998) Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (2006)

Select publications Phillips, O.M. (1957). "On the generation of waves by the turbulent wind". Journal of Fluid Mechanics. 2 (5): 417–445. Bibcode:1957JFM.....2..417P. doi:10.1017/s0022112057000233. S2CID 116675962. Phillips, O.M. (1960). "On the dynamics of unsteady gravity waves of finite amplitude, Part 1: The elementary interaction". Journal of Fluid Mechanics. 9 (2): 193–217. Bibcode:1960JFM.....9..193P. doi:10.1017/s0022112060001043. S2CID 122928711. Kato, H.; Phillips, O.M. (1969). "On the penetration of a turbulent layer into a stratified fluid". J. Fluid Mech. 37 (4): 643–655. Bibcode:1969JFM....37..643K. doi:10.1017/S0022112069000784. S2CID 122260276. Phillips, O.M. (1977). The dynamics of the upper ocean (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-29801-8. Phillips, O.M. (1991). Flow and reactions in permeable rocks. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-38098-7. Phillips, O.M. (2009). Geological fluid dynamics – Sub-surface flow and reactions. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511807473. ISBN 978-0-521-86555-5.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Owen Martin Phillips

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Owen Martin Phillips 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 Owen Martin Phillips 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 Martin Phillips 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 Martin Phillips

In research: Owen Martin Phillips 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 Owen Martin Phillips 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 Martin Phillips is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1930 births, 2010 deaths, American geophysicists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Owen Martin Phillips 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.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Owen Martin Phillips” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Owen Martin Phillips in 20 minutes

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

Frequently asked questions

What is Owen Martin Phillips in simple terms?

Owen Martin Phillips (December 30, 1930 – October 13, 2010) was a U.S. physical oceanographer and geophysicist who spent most of his career at the Johns Hopkins University. Early life Owen Phillips was born at Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia a suburb of Sydney, the son of Richard Keith and M…

Why does Owen Martin Phillips 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 Owen Martin Phillips?

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 Martin Phillips.