Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Call of the Wild
As a professor of meteorology at the University of Marburg, Alfred Wegener was
naturally interested in past climates. The authority on the subject in Germany, if
not the world, was Professor Wladimir Köppen. In 1908, Alfred visited the Köp-
pen home to seek the elder scientist's advice about research that he planned dur-
ing an upcoming expedition to Greenland. Later Wegener visited again, this time
to show Köppen his topic manuscript, titled
Thermodynamics of the Atmosphere
,
reason for the return visit: in 1913, after his second expedition to Greenland, Al-
fred married Köppen's daughter Else.
AlfredLotharWegenerwasborninBerlinin1880andstudiedattheuniversities
of Heidelberg and Innsbruck, returning to his hometown to complete a doctorate
in astronomy at Berlin University in 1905. One of his professors was Max Planck,
who became a close friend of Einstein and who in 1918 would win the Nobel Prize
in physics for the theory of quantum mechanics. Planck later made an observation
thatAlfredWegenerandotherpathbreakingscientistswouldsurelyhaveendorsed:
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making
them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new gen-
eration grows up that is familiar with it.”
2
Wegener'sPh.D.thesis,“TheAlphonsineTablesfortheUseofaModernCalcu-
lator,” gave little opportunity for him to reveal his potential as an original thinker.
These tables, named for Alfonso X of Castile, record astronomical data starting
on January 1, 1252, the date of Alfonso's coronation. Astronomers used the tables
to calculate the position of the Sun, Moon, and the five known planets at various
times in the past. Wegener's task was to recalculate the tables for use by a modern
mechanical calculator. After this tiresome experience, it comes as no surprise that
Wegener switched to meteorology, the tedious Alphonsine tables giving way to the
glistening ice of Greenland and to the elephantine dance of the continents.
Wegener's interest in both physical activity and science would take him to
Greenland three times. In 1906, he and his brother Kurt set a new world record for
the longest time aloft in a balloon. As Henry Frankel aptly writes, Wegener never
