The friend we turn to the moment we are in need. Without fear of judgement or persecution, we confide all our weaknesses. We confess our flaws, and admit to not knowing enough. Such is this friend that never leaves our side, and is always there for us. In fact, this friend’s name is now so ingrained in our lives that it has become a verb in our vocabulary.
Don’t know something?
Just Google it!
For your random pleasure, every month, FUCHSIA will pick out a Google Doodle to add to YOUR trivia database. Google Doodles are artistic versions of the Google logo, representing holidays, anniversaries and current events. Follow Doodling with Google, and very soon, you will be able to start showing off to your friends and loved ones your breadth of knowledge and information. (And FUCHSIA won’t even ask for credit, because you showing off is success enough for us!)
FUCHSIA’s choice of Google Doodle of May 2015: Inge Lehmann’s birth anniversary on 13 May.
Source : Google
Inge Lehmann
(1888 – 1993)
Source:Wikipedia
Source: Planet Earth
Inge Lehmann was born in Denmark. At a time when the Danes were migrating by the thousands, Inge Lehmann was busy studying earthquakes, energy waves and the Earth in general. Yes, there actually ARE people in the world who do that kind of thing for a living, and they actually like it! And yes, I could have used the words seismologist and geophysicist, except I had to Google these words, so I figured I should spare you the trouble.
In a country where female labour participation only caught up after the 1960s, one could say Inge Lehmann was running way ahead of her fellow comrades. In 1936, she theorized that the Earth has a solid inner core, sitting inside a molten outer core. Her interpretation was proven correct by computer calculations only in the 1970s.
For those of you who slept through Geography class like I did, here’s a quick crash course. So, the Earth has layers: the outermost crust, the mantle, the outer core (liquid iron and nickel) and the inner core (solid iron and nickel).
Think Nigella Lawson, and a Ferrero Rocher.
Earth’s Crust
The Hardened Peanut-and-Chocolate Coating
Earth’s Mantle
The Wafer Capsule
Earth’s Outer Core
The Liquid Chocolate
Earth’s Inner Core
The Hazelnut
How would she describe it?
*thick British accent* As you sink your teeth into the Earth’s crust, the smooth and the rocky collide and create perfect harmony in your mouth, with crispy peanut chunks in chocolate coating. The teeth then knock against the Earth’s mantle, seeking passage through to the Outer Core, in all its rich, creamy velvet-ness which melts further in your mouth. And finally, you reach the pinnacle of joy at the Solid Inner Core of the Earth when you embrace the crunch of the hazelnut at the centre of it all.
Source: Salvatore Cuomo
Source: A-Z Quotes
You get the idea, I am sure.
It comes as no surprise that Inge came from a family of academics – her grandfather laying down the first Danish telegraph cable, and her father a professor of experimental psychology. It is well-known that Inge’s education at a mixed gender school which she described as having “no unnecessary discipline, and we were not burdened by the prejudice which makes life different for so many people” was vital to her life and career. She was the first woman to win the William Bowie medal in 1971 for “outstanding contributions to fundamental geophysics and for unselfish cooperation in research”.
Interestingly enough, Inge Lehmann never married. Some say this was her sacrifice in the name of her career, as she lived in a time when it was thought to be impossible for married women to be successful in both their marriages and their careers.
I cannot say how true a claim this might be. What I do know is Inge Lehmann, having lived to the ripe old age of 104 years, has left support for a theory of my own: That single women might just live a lot longer.
All information in this article have been sourced from:
- Time.com
http://time.com/3856721/inge-lehmann-google-doodle-seismology-scientist-civil-rights/ - American Museum of Natural History
http://www.amnh.org/education/resources/rfl/web/essaybooks/earth/p_lehmann.html - Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inge_Lehmann - Independent.Co
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/inge-lehmanns-127th-birthday-pioneering-seismologist-celebrated-by-google-doodle-10245694.html - My DanishRoots.Com
http://www.mydanishroots.com/history-culture-heritage/a-brief-history-of-denmark-denmark-in-the-1800s.html