Sound reflections in and under oceans

Abstract

Modern oceanography is founded on the curiosity and interest of the naturalist with a bent for things marine who, in pursuing understanding of plants and animals of the oceans, has appreciated the need for comparable understanding of their physical and chemical environment. It is also founded on the interest of the physicist who from time to time has been called in to help provide for a human need: to sound ocean depths for laying cables, to make more reliable fog signals, or to avoid icebergs or deal with submarines. Some of the latter have become interested in the oceans or in the physics of the earth beneath for their own sake. No matter what their individual background, main physicists have found fascination in the science of the ocean.