Discovery
In 1951 researchers on board the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service research vessel were indulging in a spot of long line fishing. They noticed that the gear deep under water drifted eastwards. This was unusual because the surface currents of the pacific ocean flow westwards on the equator. (They follow the direction of the winds).
The following year Townsend Cromwell led a research party to investigate how the currents of the ocean varied as a function of depth. They discovered a fast flowing current that flowed eastwards in the deep surface layers.
Read more about this topic: Cromwell Current
Famous quotes containing the word discovery:
“He is not a true man of science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and expect to learn something by behavior as well as by application. It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws. The study of geometry is a petty and idle exercise of the mind, if it is applied to no larger system than the starry one.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“However backwards the world has been in former ages in the discovery of such points as GOD never meant us to know,—we have been more successful in our own days:Mthousands can trace out now the impressions of this divine intercourse in themselves, from the first moment they received it, and with such distinct intelligence of its progress and workings, as to require no evidence of its truth.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“The discovery of the North Pole is one of those realities which could not be avoided. It is the wages which human perseverance pays itself when it thinks that something is taking too long. The world needed a discoverer of the North Pole, and in all areas of social activity, merit was less important here than opportunity.”
—Karl Kraus (1874–1936)