Michael Selwyn Longuet-Higgins FRS (8 December 1925 – 26 February 2016)[5] was a British mathematician and oceanographer at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP), Cambridge University, England and Institute for Nonlinear Science, University of California, San Diego, USA.

Michael was born in Lenham, Kent in England to Henry Hugh Longuet Longuet-Higgins and Albinia Cecil Bazeley.

[8] Towards the end of the World War II (December 1943) he started working for the Admiralty Research Laboratory (ARL) in Teddington.

He worked not only on the theory of wind waves but also on the geomagnetic induction of voltages by tidal streams, and on the generation of oceanic microseisms.

In 1948 he returned to Cambridge, to read for a PhD but without a break in his research, just reporting to Sir Harold Jeffreys and later to Robert Stoneley at the end of each term.

During this time he was also a visiting scientist at Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena (1981–89) and adjunct professor at the University of Florida, Gainesville,(1981–87).

After his "retirement" in Cambridge in 1989 he moved to California and worked at the La Jolla Institute in San Diego.