Alfred Wegener: Difference between revisions
→Winter Semester 1900 - 1901
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The schedule Alfred planned for the winter semester of 1900-1901 was more rigorous than that of his first year. The mathematics course was differential equations with Lazarus Fuchs, general [[mechanics]] with Max Planck, older theories of [[celestial mechanics]] with Julius Bauschinger, general [[meteorology]] by Wilhelm von Bezold, geographical position finding and celestial navigation with Marcuse.
=== Summer Semester 1901 ===
Alfred and Kurt hatched a plan : they would take the 1901 summer semester together at the University of Innsbruck, in Austria. They would register for field [[geology]] and botany and go exploring.
Innsbruck is the capital of the province of Tirol, in southern Austria close to the Italian border. It sits in the middle of the wide plain of the River Inn at an altitude of about 600 meters. It's completely surrounded by high mountains that seem to come right up to the edge of the town. The mountains that surround Innsbruck are part of the central chain of the Eastern Alps, a 400 kilometer series of peaks from the Swiss border to the outskirts of Vienna. These mountains include more than fifty peaks above 3,048 meters and are the cradle of European alpine mountaineering.
Kurt and Alfred registered for "General Botany" (lecture) and "Exercises in Identification of Flowering Plants, with Special Attention to Medicinal Plants" (lab), both taught by Emil Heinricher, an authority on wild iris and primroses growing at altitude. His lecture and laboratory were preludes to his course "Botanical Excursions", in which students learned field identification and collecting of alpine wildflowers. They also registered for "Geological Tour of the Tirolean Alps" with Josef Blaas, who had spent his life hiking, exploring and mapping the Alps. He had just sent to press his seven-volume "Geological Guide to the Tirolean and Vorarlberg Alps". The microscale of geology was handled by Alois Cathrein, a specialist in crystal symmetry, who taught an introduction to mineralogy, followed by a mineralogical field course : "Mineralogical and Petrographic Excursions."
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