As dawn washes over Bondi Beach, you can see the surfers beyond the break, gently rising and falling on their boards. They gather like this when the surf forecast tells them a big swell is rolling in, carrying energy from a ferocious Antarctic storm thousands of kilometres away.

From Bondi to Bundoran, Pipeline to Mavericks, surfers around the world depend on the surf forecast to catch the perfect wave. Its inventor, Walter Munk, is 100 today – yet few surfers know his name, despite the debt of gratitude they owe him.

Walter Munk: the father of surf forecasting.Holger Motzkau/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

‘Einstein of the ocean’

Munk might be under-appreciated in surfing circles, but he’s a big deal in ocean science. He has been described …