Biography WEGEGER

Not Plutovsky, like the life of Rumford, about which we talked about in one of the recent rooms of “Quantik”, and the heroic, like “two captains” Kaverin. Eternal ice, human perseverance, energy, self -sacrifice, tragedy, memory. However, the fate of the ideas of Vegener was no less amazing than the fate of their author. Rejected and ridiculed during the life of a scientist, they became generally accepted ten years after his death.

And modern knowledge allowed them to fit them into a holistic picture of the processes taking place in the earth's crust. Now we know not only the continents move relative to each other, not only where they move, but also how, at what speed and why this happens. So the story of Veener we will divide into two parts. The life of the scientist himself is the life of his theory.

Having brilliantly graduating from the gymnasium, he chose astronomy with his specialization in which he defended his dissertation and meteorology - the science of the weather. At that time, a meteorologist could find a job related to numerous dangers and adventures. For example, Alfred Veener, along with his older brother Kurt, also meteorologist, flew in balloons to monitor the movement of air masses - and once, partly unexpected for themselves, set a record of the duration of a continuous air balloons: 52 and a half hours!

But in the same year, when this record was set, a much more important event occurred in the life of Vegener: together with the Danish scientific expedition, he first visited Greenland. The extreme north is a place, frankly, not for everyone. Ice open spaces, no life around, constant danger and cold is a cold that cannot be used to. Nevertheless, there are people who find the main interest and meaning in these parts.

Dunmarkshavn today. Greenland summer. Photo: Andreas Faessler, Wikimedia during his first Greenland expedition, Vegraster, along with other researchers, studied the northeastern coast of the island: there were still completely unexplored places. With his participation, sections of the coast were applied to the map, the small weather station Dunmarkshavn was erected - it still exists.

And there, Vegher first encountered how the North takes lives: three participants in the expedition died in the ice, including its head of Mulius-Ericksen. Vegher returned. He gave lectures on meteorology and astronomy at the University of Marburg. He wrote the book "Thermodynamics of the atmosphere", which included many of the Greenland observations. The Greenland Vegener expeditions every next Greenland expedition with the participation of Vegener was more complicated and extremeer than the previous one.

In the 13th years, the group led by Danish captain Johan Peter Koch, faced the most difficult difficulties. The vegener is strongly bruised, Koch broke his leg on the glacier. Nevertheless, the team was overwhelmed and in the summer of the year went from East to the western coast of Greenland. Already at the end of the route, without reaching the nearest settlement, the expedition members were completely without strength and without food - and only a random meeting with a local resident allowed them to get out alive.

Veener returned again. He married the daughter of one of his senior colleagues, a Köppen meteorologist. He settled with his young wife Elsa in Marburg. But here a calm life did not work: the First World War began. There was nowhere to go: Vegener was immediately called to the front. After two serious wounds, they released to be treated, and then transferred from combat units to a military weather service.

It was then that he was able to finish the first version of his main book - “The origin of the continents and oceans” back in the year, before his second Greenland expedition, he made a report on this subject before the German geographical society. Then his research was published in a scientific journal. And only then they were collected in a book, which later was complemented more than once and reprinted.

Avraam Ortelius, in principle, the very idea that continents can converge and diverge was not at all new. Everyone who looked at the map of the hemispheres or the globe probably occurred to that the contour of the west coast of Africa is perfectly combined with the contour of the eastern coast of South America - like two pieces of one puzzle. Later, the idea that the position of the continents and oceans is gradually changing over each other over time, arose in the writings of different authors.

But none of them could describe and explain the movement of the continents. Some ideas were closer to mysticism than to science - say that the divergence of the continents occurred as a result of a huge geological disaster, which is described in the Old Testament as a worldwide flood. There was even a theory according to which the moon once made up one whole with the ground, and then came off it, and then huge shifts of the earth's crust occurred the similarity of the geological structure, the community of fossil flora and fauna, data on climate changes in different continents in different epochs-everything said that the continents were not at all where they were gathered now, that they were gathered in a single one, that they were collected in a single one.

supercontinent, and then gradually dispersed. However, despite the many facts collected, the ideas of Vegener were not accepted by the then scientific community. Especially loud criticism sounded when the “origin of the continents and oceans” was translated into English and became known in Britain and the USA. Almost all authoritative specialists of those times were inclined to the fact that the provisions of the continents remain fixed - this concept was called fixismism.

And the construction of the vegener could not shake it, if only because they had a very significant defect: there was no convincing theory that could explain why and due to which forces the continents could move. Another problem was that the veger incorrectly appreciated the speed of the relative movement of the continents - he was not even mistaken several times, but by several orders of magnitude: not about a centimeter a year, but a few meters a year.

Well, the fact that he was actually not a geophysicist, but a meteorologist, that is, a stranger and amateur for geologists, also played a significant role. The veger during the second Greenland expedition - about the details of the theory of Vegener and about its future fate, we will tell you later. In the meantime, the veger did not retreat and continued to work.

He moved to Hamburg, was studying the climate of distant eras, then received the department in Graz-it was finally a stable position and a true piece of bread. He still conducted meteorological surveys. Once again, he reprinted the “The Organization of Continents and Oceans”. But Greenland was still calling him. But from the very beginning, everything went wrong: due to the late thaw, the landing on the west coast of the island occurred six weeks later than the planned one.

In addition, a sled with a motor for which there were many hopes, turned out to be inappropriate for local conditions. Motosani of two wintering workers, a meteorologist and glaciologist of the ice specialist still managed to abandon the Greenland Center, where the Ismitte base was installed-the “middle of the ice” in German. But they did not manage to supply this base with sufficient supplies.

And in September, Wener and dog teams left the coast on Ismitt to give scientists everything necessary: ​​kerosene, devices, and walkie -talkie. The weather was already harsh: the summer in the Arctic ends quickly. Vegener and Villumsen the trip took place in very difficult conditions, fog and snowfall were replaced by wind and frost. Almost all participants returned to the coast, and only Vegener himself, meteorologist Leva and young Eskimos Inuut Rasmus Villumen continued.

Dogs were exhausted. But still three travelers reached the ice. Everything was not as bad there as it was expected, but what to do? Winter too? But for five people there will not be enough products. Leva remained at the base: he was very frostbitten. And Vegers and Villomsen set off on the return trip. It was November 2, the day after the fiftieth anniversary of the vegener.

They did not reach the coast. The search for the missing began. And after a while, the polar explorers saw two skis stuck in the snow, and between them a ski stick. Having excavated the snow under the skis, they found the body of Vegener. He was carefully buried by Rasmus Villumsen. Rasmus himself could not be detected - neither alive nor dead. Most likely, he went astray and died somewhere.

The body of Vegener remained in the Greenland snow. A memorial sign was installed at this place. This ends the story of a bold and stubborn person - but the story of the triumph of his ideas did not even begin then. The end follows 1 question about the origin of the moon is amazingly interesting, but completely goes beyond this article! In any case, the theory of separation of the moon from the Earth is not consistent with modern scientific data.