Alfred Wegener: A Man Ahead of His Time
Alfred Wegener was a geophysicist from Germany. He was born in Berlin, 1880, the son of an orphanage director. He was the originator of the theory of continental drift. Wegener’s theory was to revolutionize the science of geology. Alfred Wegener’s greatest contribution to the scientific world was his ability to take unrelated facts and weave them into a theory. This was a great achievement for a man of his time.
In 1905, he obtained his decorate in planetary astronomy. He soon became interested in meteorology. The following year he joined a Danish expedition to Greenland to study polar air circulation. He spent two years there, and made a further 3 journeys to Greenland during his lifetime.
Wegener joined the German army at the outbreak of the First World War, but was injured shortly afterward. In 1914, as he was recuperating in a military hospital, he focused his attention on developing an idea that had intrigued him for years. He used that ample time to try to discover the origins of the Earth’s continents. Like other scientists before him, Wegener was astounded how the coastlines of eastern South America and western Africa might fit together if the two continents were juxtaposed. He speculated that the two continents were once joined: furthermore, he proposed that all of the present-day continents originally formed one land mass. Wegener believed that the super continent began to break into smaller continents around 200 million years ago.
Wegener fully developed his ideas into the Theory of Continental Drift, detailed in a book titled Die Entstehung der kontinente und Ozeane (in English, The origin of Continents and Ocean) published in 1915.
Unfortunately, Wegener’s book met with considerable hostility. Despite overwhelming criticism from most leading geologists, who regarded him as a mere meteorologist and outsider meddling in their field, Wegener did not back down but worked harder to strengthen his theory.
Wegener achieved one of his lifetime goals: an academic position. He accepted a professorship at the University of Grazin Austria. Although, he really wanted a position in his native Germany.
Ironically, shortly after achieving his academic goal, Wegener died on a meteorological expedition to Greenland. The expedition was to help establish a weather station to study the jet stream. Despite appalling weather and thirteen out of fifteen Greenlanders turning back, Wegener insisted on getting to the station. After five weeks, Wegener succeeded in reaching the station. Unfortunately, he froze to death on his return journey to base camp, the body only being recovered the following summer.
Wegener was still an energetic, brilliant researcher when he died at the age of 50, 1930. A year before Wegener’s death, the English geologist Arthur Holmes speculated that convection currents in the Earth’s mantle account for continental movement. After the war, Wegener’s work gradually gained credence following studies of the Earth’s magnetic field and the discovery of the phenomenon of sea floor spreading. Full acceptance came in the mid-60’s, when the theory of plate tectonics provided a mechanism that would account for the movement of the continents.
After researching about Alfred Wegener I have grown to respect him and his ideas. He was an extremely intelligent man. There is still so much he could have done if he had not’t died at such a young age.
By: Alana 98