Pardon the topic title, wanted to catch the eyes of people browsing through..

Today in my beginning Oceanography class my professor lectured on Alfred Wegener and his hypothesis of continental drift. I'll talk a bit about the continental drift, but I want to first focus on how cool Wegener was, an opinion my professor influenced. I'll be going mostly off memory (and my notes) but I've double checked some facts using wikipedia and various site, notably http://www.pangaea.org/wegener.htm .


The man himself.

Now then: why is Alfred Wengener worth studying today? Perhaps some (most) of you have heard of his hypothesis on continental drift. In his book published in 1915, The Origin of Continents and Oceans, Wegener presents a hypothesis that states the continents are not static (as was believed by nearly the entire scientific community at the time), but in motion. Wegener called this 'continental drift', literally, the continents were drifting around due to centrifugal force exterted by the rotating earth, creating mountain ranges as they smashed into the sea floor and slowly moving towards the equator.

His ideas were rejected by the scientific community. They simply refused to believe it. Wegener argued against nearly all the world's scientists for the rest of his life, defending his hypothesis and expanding on it. So if no one respected his ideas, how can I claim that he is a BAMF?

Well, as it turns out, Wegener was wrong. But the rest of scientific community was even further off base. Earlier I mentioned that Wegener was among the first to say that the continents are moving, and indeed they are, but not because of continental drift. Wegener noted that the continents fit together like puzzle pieces (Pangea) and that very similar land forms, mineral desposits, and fossils were found across multiple continents, further validating his ideas. Eventually, around 1960, technology had progressed enough for scientists to see the validity in Wegener's hypothesis and expand and correct it.

But Wegener wasn't only a BAMF for helping revolutionise the way we see the world. He also lived a very exciting life.

Wegener was German, and fought in World War I alongside his brother. He was wounded in the arm, and his brother dressed his wound and helped him make his way to a hospital, where Alfred recovered and returned to lines a short time after. Then, Wegener was wounded again, this time in the neck, and his brother again saved him, and Wegener was left to recover in the hospital. The wound was serious, as the bullet was resting in his spine, and he had to have a lead plate placed in his neck. During his recovery, Wegener researched more about the continents. I find this incredible enough, because if I got a wound like Wegener I'd have just sat around and tried to get everyone to wait on me. Clearly Wegener was a pretty tough guy.

What also amazes me about Wegener was that he wasn't even a geologist or oceanographer. He was a meteorologist. He spent many of his days up in a balloon, studying air currents and breaking records--clearly a quality of a BAMF. Wegener also undertook many expeditions to Greenland, no easy task. Add that to the fact he had a chunk of metal in his neck and you get a man that is very cold, more so than everyone else. but still he went, exploring and studying air currents, killing polar bears with his gaze. (Okay, maybe he didn't do that.) Wegener and his team were far into Greenland, and running low on supplies, and as such Wegener went out in a snowstorm to get the much needed food and equipment. Being the glass-eater he was, he made it and got all the necesary supplies. To me, what makes it more admirable was the fact that dogs and sleds were the only method of transportation at this time.

Sadly, Wegener ventured out into the cold once more, and was never seen again. His body was found a year later in a crevasse, and the probable cause of death was heart failure--heart failure through overexertion. My professor brings up a good question: what could the man have been doing to overexert himself to death, when he was clearly so awesome? His guess is very plausible: Wegener, being bored only facing the cold and wind, decided to wrestle some polar bears, and after he took out six he couldn't handle it anymore.

:hmmm:

Sounds like a valid cause of death for someone like Alfred Wegener.

Hope you enjoyed reading this, and I hope I didn't mess up his hypothesis or disgrace the name of science. If I did, please let me know.