Wegener, Alfred (1880-1930)
German meteorologist
Alfred Wegener was primarily a meteorologist who became much more famous for proposing the idea of continental drift. Decades after his death, the theory of continental drift that he had proposed in 1912 became the well-established foundation for the plate tectonics revolution in the earth sciences. Wegener heard mostly ridicule of his continental drift idea during his lifetime, but in the 1960s, oceanic data convinced scientists that continents do indeed move. Wegener was an eminent meteorologist in his time, but he was appointed professor late in his professional career, and died during one of his scientific trips to Greenland.
Wegener was born in Berlin, Germany to Richard, a minister and director of an orphanage, and Anna Wegener. From an early age, he hoped to explore Greenland, and he walked, hiked, and skated in order to build up his endurance for such a trip. He studied at the universities in Heidelberg, Innsbruck, and Berlin, receiving a doctorate in astronomy from the latter in 1905. Wegener's thesis involved conversion of a thirteenth-century set of astronomical tables into decimal notation; thereafter he abandoned astronomy in favor of meteorology. He carried out experiments with kites and balloons, fascinated with the new science of weather.
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