Doodling with Google

Source : Google

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

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.