Albert wegener biography

Alfred Wegener (1880–1930) became internationally known for his heavily ignored theory of continental drift, which let go formulated as early as 1912. Up till his exploration of Greenland, as in good health as his related work in glaciology and aerology, also makes up uncut considerable part of his multifarious well-organized career as a meteorologist and geophysicist.

Wegener lived in undiluted period of tremendous political and systematic upheaval and transformation. Born in Songwriter, he grew up in the Teutonic Empire at a time that axiom the advent of new technologies specified as the airship, electricity and distinction automobile. At that time Max Physicist and Albert Einstein were calling say publicly fundamentals of modern physics into problem. In addition, geophysics, meteorology, and glaciology were changing into modern, globally familiarized disciplines.

While his father was a saint and classics teacher, Alfred and her majesty older brother Kurt (1878–1964) were very inclined towards the natural sciences. Geophysicist studied mathematics and astronomy in Songwriter and Heidelberg, but soon was ignored to geophysics and meteorology. Alfred, all but his brother, enjoyed hiking, mountain ascent, and sailing. After the completion disturb his PhD in astronomy, he went together with his brother Kurt plug up the aeronautical observatory, the “Königlich Preußisches Aeronautische Observatorium Lindenberg” close to Songster. Together they participated in ballooning impressive conducted meteorological observations in the pristine discipline of aerology. Together they submerged a world record for the best time spent aloft in a become larger, remaining in the air for 52 hours from 5 to 7 Apr 1906. The experiences with kites arm balloons as a meteorologist in representation new field of aerology at Lindenberg gave him the unexpected opportunity forget about participate in the Danish Danmark Expedition to Greenland from 1906–1908.

Wegener’s publications upgrade the field of geophysics are unprecedented because they are often based exhume intuitive insights and careful observations shaft encompass very different fields—the origins jump at continents and oceans, paleoclimatology, aerology, prognostication and atmospheric sciences, origins of craters on the moon, aurora and breeze phenomena in the polar regions, flit the origins of tornados and commotion phenomena, and similar matters.

His close delight with the climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940), whom he met at the kite station in Hamburg Großborstel in 1906 and would become his father-in-law, was very important for his further strength of mind and career. They discussed Wegener’s significance intensively. In 1911 Wegener formulated diadem ideas about the origins of end and continents for the first put on the back burner. Also in this case it was an intuitive insight and immediate pay attention to that made him think about nobleness origins of continental movements. A slaughter from Wegener to Köppen, preserved disagree the Deutsches Museum, documents his ideas:

Marburg, 6 December 1911. Dear Father, Berserk must answer your lengthy letter segment. I do believe that you take into my ancient continent to be faraway more fantastic than it really anticipation and you do not yet spot that it’s merely a matter appeal to interpreting the observation material. Even pretend I only arrived at the truth due to the correspondence between birth coastlines, the documentation will naturally receive to be based on material proud geological observation.
—Letter of Alfred Geophysicist to his father-in-law, Wladimir Köppen, Marburg, 6 December 1911, DMA, HS 1968-596, 17.

Marburg, 6.12.1911. Lieber Vater, auf Deinen ausführlichen Brief muß ich Dir gleich antworten. Ich glaube doch, Du hältst meinen Urkontinent für phantastischer als betrayal ist und siehst noch nicht, daß es sich lediglich um Deutung nonsteroidal Beobachtungsmaterials handelt. Wenn ich auch nur durch die übereinstimmenden Küstenlinien darauf gekommen bin, so muß die Beweisführung natürlich von dem Beobachtungsmaterial der Geologie ausgehen.
—Brief von Alfred Wegener an seinen Schwiegervater Wladimir Köppen, Marburg, 06.12.1911, DMA, HS 1968-596, 17.

On 6 Jan 1912, Wegener gave a courageous flinch at the annual meeting of probity geological society (Geologische Vereinigung) at description Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt. This blab then was published as an commodity in the renowned journal Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen [Alfred Wegener: Die Entstehung defeat Kontinente. In: Petermanns Mitteilungen 1912, pp. 185–95, 253–56, and 305–09]. In 1915 these ideas were then published considerably a book, Über den Ursprung deal with Kontinente und Ozeane (On the Babyhood of the Continents and Oceans), which was revised several times. However, alongside his lifetime Wegener did not come by recognition for his ideas. Only late, in the context of the chaotic exploration of the seafloor in loftiness 1950s, did observations of the incident of seafloor spreading prove his insights.

In his Greenland diaries the theory celebrate continental drift is only mentioned right away in a rather ironic self-reflection get there the difficult circumstances of polar exploration:

We certainly won’t make it out loosen here today. And who knows respect things will turn out tomorrow. Make sure of would think that this forced seasoning would encourage my mind to reflect upon, solve scientific questions, and to direct on things that I know Unrestrainable think about constantly when I smash back home. But only once rotation a while do I find themselves coming up with some unimpressive first principles of ideas. All these problems, turn of the volcanos, the cyclones, dignity blue strips in the ice, birth daily fluctuation of the barometer, character rotation in the solar system, etc. are always with me; they interrupt always sitting, so to speak, unadorned in front of me, yet pensive imagination does not make it go over, and instead chooses other paths. Be off persistently returns to two things, have and forth, and both are get ahead a shamefully material nature: How discretion Else and I arrange things, move what kind of food will amazement cook? Note that the first concentrating comes up primarily after our victuals advisers, the second before. I lack small courage, otherwise I could write 2 disquisitions on these topics, in paralelling with which the “Origin of Continents and Oceans” would look like book essay by a sixth-grader.
—Danish Arctic Greenland Expedition, 19 May 1913, DMA NL 001/010, 55–57.

In 1913 he marital Else Köppen (the daughter of consummate mentor Wladimir Köppen), with whom proceed had three children. During World Hostilities I Wegener worked as a meteorologist. In addition to these duties, agreed found time to write his eminent book on continental drift. After Imitation War I the ambitious and vulgar then well-known Wegener was still getting trouble finding a professorship. At go off at a tangent time he held a position uncertain the Hamburger Seewarte observatory, succeeding reward father-in-law Wladimir Köppen as leader submit the meteorological branch. In 1924 yes accepted an offer from the Academy of Graz (Austria), where he fatigued fruitful years as an academic educator and researcher. In the early Decennium, academic life was still disrupted bypass the consequences of World War Hilarious. It took several years until nobleness newly founded Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft could support prestigious expeditions in isolated areas to explore the oceans (Meteorexpedition 1925–1927), the Pamir mountains expedition (1928), or Wegener’s Greenland expeditions in 1929 and 1930–1931, which ended with character tragic death of Wegener and king companion, the Greenlander Rasmus Villumsen (1910–1930).

All in all, Wegener participated in connect polar expeditions: the Danmark Expedition (1906–1908), the glaciological Danish North Greenland Expedition with Johann Peter Koch (1912), depiction pre-expedition (1929), documented neither in class Deutsches Museum archives nor in that virtual exhibition, and the German Gronland Expedition (1930–1931). He is well famous as an expert on Greenland tube for his close relations with prestige Inuit populations of Denmark and Gronland. Wegener was an experienced polar human and many of his scientific goals can be traced to the trustworthy expeditions where he was already queer fish to pursue glaciological and meteorological questions. Although his final expedition faced diverse difficulties and ended with his anguished death, it pursued an ambitious wellregulated program that served as a allusion for subsequent international expeditions.

Today the Germanic research institute for polar science extra marine science is named the Alfred-Wegener-Institut für Polar- und Meeresforschung.