Vagn Walfrid Ekman

Vagn Walfrid Ekman was a Swedish oceanographer who became committed to the discipline while studying physics at the University of Uppsala, in particular after hearing Vilhelm Bjerknes lecture on fluid dynamics. During the expedition of the ship Fram, the explorer Fridtjof Nansen had observed that icebergs drift not in the direction of the wind but at an angle to it, and Bjerknes invited the young Ekman to investigate. In 1905 Ekman published his theory of the Ekman spiral, explaining the phenomenon as a balance between frictional effects in the ocean and the Coriolis force arising from the Earth's rotation. After completing his doctorate at Uppsala in 1902 he spent seven years at the International Laboratory for Oceanographic Research in Oslo, developing experimental instruments including the Ekman current meter and the Ekman water bottle, before taking a professorship of mechanics and mathematical physics at the University of Lund from 1910 to 1939.