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Alfred Wegener noticed that Africa and South America fit together like torn paper, and proposed in 1912 that the continents drift. Geologists ridiculed him. He was proved right decades after he died on the ice.

Alfred Wegener (1880–1930)

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Why it matters

The idea in context

His evidence was good — matching coastlines, matching rock formations, identical fossils on shores now separated by an ocean. His weakness was that he could not explain what force could shove a continent. That gap let the field dismiss him, sometimes savagely; one geologist called it delirious ravings. Wegener died at fifty on a Greenland expedition, still unaccepted. In the 1960s, mapping of the sea floor revealed plates spreading apart, and the mechanism appeared. Plate tectonics is now the organising idea of the earth sciences.

Türkçe

Aynı kart, başka bir dilde.

Alfred Wegener, Afrika ile Güney Amerika'nın yırtık kâğıt gibi birbirine oturduğunu fark etti ve 1912'de kıtaların sürüklendiğini öne sürdü. Jeologlar onunla alay etti. Buz üzerinde öldükten onlarca yıl sonra haklı çıktı.
Alfred Wegener (1880-1930)

Kanıtları sağlamdı — örtüşen kıyı çizgileri, örtüşen kaya oluşumları, bugün bir okyanusla ayrılmış kıyılarda özdeş fosiller. Zayıflığı, bir kıtayı hangi kuvvetin itebileceğini açıklayamamasıydı. Bu boşluk, alanın onu bazen acımasızca reddetmesine yol açtı; bir jeolog buna sayıklama dedi. Wegener bir Grönland seferinde, hâlâ kabul görmeden elli yaşında öldü. 1960'larda deniz tabanının haritalanması, birbirinden ayrılan levhaları ortaya çıkardı ve mekanizma belirdi. Levha tektoniği bugün yer bilimlerinin düzenleyici fikridir.

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Background reading: Alfred WegenerAttribution and context are revised when stronger evidence appears. Corrections are welcome through the editorial page.
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