Alfred Wegener

Alfred Wegener proposed "continental drift" theory in 1912 and developed it extensively for nearly twenty years. His book on the subject, "The Origin of Continents and Oceans", went through four editions and was the focus of an international controversy in his lifetime and for some years after his death. Wegener's basic idea was that many problems and puzzles of the earth's history could be solved if one supposed that the continents moved laterally rather than supposing that they remained fixed in place. Wegener worked over many years to show how such continental movements were plausible and how they worked, using evidence and results from geology, geodesy, geophysics, paleontology, climatology and paleogeography.

Although he was the author of a "geological theory", he was not a geologist. He was trained as an astronomer and pursued a career in atmospheric physics. When he proposed the theory of continental displacements (1912), he was 31 years old and an instructor of physics and astronomy at the University of Marburg, Germany. In 1906, he and his brother had set a world record for time aloft in a free balloon : fifty-two hours. Between 1906 - 1908 he had taken part in a highly publicized expedition to explore the coast of northeast Greenland. He was also known to the circle of meteorologists and atmospheric physicists in Germany as the author of a textbook, "Thermodynamics of the Atmosphere" (1911). He also wrote a number scientific papers on atmospheric layering.

Early life

Born in 1843, Richard Wegener was ninth of the eleven children of Friedrich Wilhelm Wegener, an owner of a military uniform factory in Wittstock, in the northwest corner of Brandenburg, about 90 kilometers from Berlin. Richard realized his father's ambition to study theology and become an evangelican clergymen. After his seminary study and ordination in 1868, he spent a year as an assistant pastor to parish in Kolmar, Posen -- the Prussian province centered on the historic Polish city of Poznan. Later, he returned to Wittstock and asked Anna Schwarz to marry him. Anna was herself an orphan, born in the tiny hamlet of Zechlinerhutte and raised by relatives in nearby Wittstock. She and Richard had met as students.

Richard studied Greek, Latin and Hebrew and earned a PhD from the Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Berlin in 1873. In that same year, Richard and Anna took over the Schindler Orphanage (Schindlersches Waisenhaus), a privately endowed orphanage for sons of clergy, teachers, civil servants, landowners and merchants. Richard also began his parallel career teaching Greek and Latin at the Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster, teaching German literature at a nearby Mädchenschule (girl's school) and holding a chaplaincy at the criminal court in the nearby neighborhood of Moabit.

Later, Alfred Lothar Wegener was born in Berlin, 1 November 1880. Alfred was the fifth and youngest child of Richard Wegener and Anna Schwarz. His birthplace was a converted Austrian embassy at 57 Friedrichsgracht, a scant few blocks from the Imperial Palace, facing the Spree Canal, on the southeastern side of the island. This structure was home to Schindler Orphanage that housed the Wegener family, the thirty or so orphans in their charge, Richard Wegener's assistants in the teaching and daily supervision of the orphans, and the resident domestics under the direction of Anna Wegener.

Cöllnische Gymnasium

In 1890, at the age of ten, Alfred entered the Cöllnische Gymnasium. The Cöllnische Gymnasium's curriculum was, like all truly classical Gymnasien in Prussia, centered on languages and literature, with a pivotal place given to Greek and Latin. Among the modern languages, in addition to German language and literature, there was instruction in French and English. Students also were taught history, religion, geography and mathematics.

German schoolboys of this era devoted an overwhelming proportion of their study time to Greek and Latin. When Crown Prince Wilhelm took the throne in June 1888 to become Kaiser Wilhelm II, the situation changed rapidly. Wilhelm was sympathetic to modern scientific education, an education suitable for an industrial state that also wised to be a great empire, and was interested in the question of educational reform. By 1892, he had successfully ordered a reduction in the number of hours devoted to Latin. In 1897, the minister in charge of Prussia's universities, Friedrich Althoff, let it be known that he intended to alter secondary school curricula to link mathematics instruction to real instruction in physics, allowing physics to become a secondary school subject in its own right.

It appears that Alfred's physics teacher, who was interested in astronomy and had a refracting telescope, recognized Alfred's talent and interest. He invited Alfred to take up the study by joining him in making observations. For the next year and a half, until his graduation, Alfred pursued astronomy whenever time and weather permitted. Walking back to the Gymnasium in the evenings and observing the heavens with his teacher, from the roof of the school. Later, Alfred was leaning toward entering the University of Berlin to study astronomy. In the winter of 1899, Alfred passed his Abitur, the final and comprehensive examination that guaranteed automatic admission to the university system.