The Spark We Need, for the Ocean We Want

Abstract

Walter Munk “Failures” as a Young Scholar... (or were they?) Walter Munk, one of history’s greatest oceanographers, frequently mentioned his fear that young researchers are no longer pursuing high-risk, high-reward projects. Driven by competition for limited funding, strict career expectations, and apparent lack of encouragement, daring research projects led by younger researchers seemed to him to be on the fringe of extinction. But why wasWalter particularly interested in these types of projects? What can we learn from his professional career that might inspire our generation to pursue such risky ideas? As a young researcher, Walter ventured into projects that seemed impossible. For example, working with his mentor and Ph.D. supervisor Harold Sverdrup, they developed the first mathematical method for predicting surf conditions. During World War II, their method was used to help time the Allies’ assault on the beaches ofNormandy, amajor turning point of the war. What books normally do not mention about this fateful “D-Day” is that the surf predictions produced by their model for the day that the Allied forces chose to invade, June 5, 1944, were far from ideal. Based on the modeled prediction, the assault should have been postponed at least 2 days. However, military leaders feared a 2-day delay might result in loss of the element of surprise and chose instead to delay by only 1 day. Surf conditions were less than ideal on June 6, but because of those rough ocean conditions, German forces did not expect an attack. This successful operation hastened the end of the war, and this seminal wave prediction model was also considered an academic success. Today, the fundamental logic behind this technique still constitutes the basis for modern wave prediction systems. Another daring example from Walter’s career was an undertaking he proposed in 1957 that would become known as the MOHOLE Project. The aim was to drill a hole through the Earth’s crust to the boundary of its mant le , ca l l ed the Mohorovi č i ć discontinuity or “Moho.” Given that the Earth’s crust is thinner beneath the ocean floor (5–10 km) than on land (30–50 km), Walter and his colleagues decided to try their drilling there. After 5 years, the endeavor became so expensive and fraught with problems that it gained infamy as the first ever governmentsponsored research project to be cancelled by the U.S. House of Representatives (at Walter’s and his colleagues’ request). However, even though this high-risk project failed to achieve its primary objective, many technological advances resulted from the effort, most notably the development of an ingenious dynamic positioning system that maintained the ship’s position sufficient to make deep-ocean drilling a viable means of obtaining geological samples. Eventually, these advances would serve as the foundation for much of the deepsea drilling we know today (Figure 1). So, what can we learn from Walter’s life? That daring ideas of young and imaginative researchers can lead to transformative innovation and longlasting impacts, even when they appear to “fail.”