October 15, 2024
1 min learn
Poem: ‘Alfred Wegener to the World’
Science in meter and verse
On supporting science journalism
If you happen to’re having fun with this text, think about supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By buying a subscription you’re serving to to make sure the way forward for impactful tales in regards to the discoveries and concepts shaping our world at present.
Edited by Dava Sobel
And but it strikes! Shh—hear the mountains murmur?
Peripatetic prairies slowly creep
throughout the globe. There isn’t a terra firma.
Is that so terra-ble? We’ll should hold
producing new and up to date editions
of each atlas. Nevertheless it’s nobody’s fault
that continents collide, or cut up in fissions.
On groaning sleds of granite and basalt,
coastlines advance on trans-oceanic missions
like runners on the planet’s most boring race
(although sluggish, they by no means fail to cowl floor)
and someway, nonetheless, their clip exceeds the tempo
a cussed tutorial comes round
to proof, and modifications his positions.
Creator’s be aware: Wegener was an early proponent of continental drift—a principle initially met with resistance.