Talk:Alfred Wegener

Children

he had 10 kids — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.172.206.214 (talk) 14:47, April 27, 2021 (UTC)

Misleading Statement

At the end of this wiki, there is this statement which I believe is misleading or inaccurate:

"With the advent of the Global Positioning System (GPS) in 1993, it became possible to measure continental drift directly." Ref #32

Reference #32, Brady Haran (4 June 2003). "The millimetre men". BBC News UK. Archived from the original on 5 November 2011. Retrieved 6 October 2011.

There are two problems with the statement:

1. GPS does not measure continental drift "directly"

2. Continental drift was first measured in 1970

My understanding is that the radio astronomy technique of Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) is used to relate the Celestial and Terrestrial reference frames, and it is the relationship between the two, that is how continental drift is in fact measured. Therefore, using GPS to measure continental drift, is an indirect method, because it is dependent upon the product of the work done using VLBI.

The first measurements of continental drift were made using VLBI in 1970 by a team of scientists from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and MIT’s Haystack Observatory. A book by Donald Harvey Tarling, and Maureen P Tarling (originally written by Alan R. Hargreaves, one of scientists involved in the measurements) is titled "Continental drift : a study of the Earth's moving surface" and includes reference(s) to the experiments.

I hope this clarifies, what I believe is an incorrect and misleading statement about how continental drift is measured. 70.24.155.15 (talk) 05:37, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

english translations of his 1915 book

quotation from World War I: Nevertheless, he was able in 1915 to complete the first version of his major work, Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane ("The Origin of Continents and Oceans"). His brother Kurt remarked that Alfred Wegener's motivation was to "reestablish the connection between geophysics on the one hand and geography and geology on the other, which had become completely ruptured because of the specialized development of these branches of science."

I propose to add the following:

The second, revised edition appeared in 1920. The third (1922) edition was translated and published by Methuen. The fourth (1929), revised edition was translated (by John Biram) and appeared in 1966.

178.202.73.183 (talk) 08:16, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

There should be something about Wegener's advocacy (in 1921) of the impact hypothesis for lunar craters. This was a controversial idea at the time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.31.67.35 (talk) 21:30, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 31 March 2024

In paragraph 3 paleomagnetism is spelt palaeomagnetism 99.72.223.88 (talk) 16:44, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: That's just an alternative spelling (American vs. British English). No reason to change it. Liu1126 (talk) 20:13, 31 March 2024 (UTC)