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Blackboard Ocean

Be it ever so humble, Walsh Cottage at WHOI is considered by many to be a sacred place. Since 1959, many great scientific minds have gathered each summer in a cramped, unadorned building for the annual Geophysical Fluid Dynamics program. Together, they contemplate all manner of complex fluid motions in oceanography, meteorology, geophysics, astrophysics, applied mathematics, engineering, and physics—often crystalizing their thoughts into equations on old-fashioned blackboards. Over its history, many prominent scientists at universities and research institutions throughout the world have spent a summer in Walsh Cottage.(Photo by Jayne Doucette, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)