Hollow Earth

The theory of the hollow Earth is an obsolete scientific theory that the earth is not a massive spherical body, but a hollow sphere is the Earth's core and (mostly) the mantle so do not exist. The Earth's Interior should therefore be accessible through various openings, such as large openings in the region of the poles. Sometimes the term hollow world theory is used for, but which is ambiguous.

History

The first theory on a scientific basis was suggested by Edmond Halley in 1691. Isaac Newton had calculated that the moon is denser than the Earth. Starting from the general view, all matter of the planets and moons would have the same density, Halley concluded that part of the earth must be hollow. In addition, he had observed that the magnetic field of the Earth changes with time. He assumed that the Earth consists of a central ball and concentrically surrounding three hollow balls, about the size of the moon and the planets Mercury and Venus. Each of these bodies would have its own magnetic field, and as they turned at different speeds, it follows on the surface of the earth a changing total magnetic field. Since you previously assumed that all heavenly bodies are inhabited, he populated the inner planets. These hollow Earth theory was the first conclusion from the new theory of gravitation Newton in the Principia, before Halley's prediction of a comet from 1695th

Europe were again observed very bright auroras first time after the Maunder Minimum On March 6, 1716 in England and large parts of which were visible even in the daytime. The Royal Society commissioned Halley to explain these phenomena. He led her back to the fact that the earth's crust in northern latitudes is characterized by thin and seem the light from the cavities. When the 80 -year-old Halley was portrayed as Astronomer Royal, he allowed himself to depict with a diagram of the hollow earth.

The Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler discussed in a thought experiment in his Lettres à une princesse d' Allemagne, if the earth (as well as the other planets ) is hollow and lit by an inner " sun ", " donates an upstanding inner terrestrial humanity heat and light ".

The Scottish physicist and mathematician Sir John Leslie put two small suns at the center, which he named Pluto and Proserpina.

More recently, this idea was a captain in the U.S. Army named John Cleves Symmes, Jr.. (1780-1829) represented. 1826 published James McBride Symmes ' Theory of Concentric Spheres. Symmes moved the Congress to fund an expedition to the South Pole, where his consideration after an opening should be located inside the earth. The expedition was launched, but failed to go mutinies.

Today the interior construction (including the density gradient, the magnetic field and the thermal balance ) of the earth is known and cavities are no longer necessary to explain the properties of the earth. Furthermore, the different structure of both the terrestrial and the known gas giant planets.

Literary reactions

The theory of the hollow earth influenced Ludvig Holberg's Niels Klim's underground Roman Travel (1741 ), Edgar Allan Poe's work " Arthur Gordon Pym " and was by Jules Verne's novel "Journey to the Center of the Earth " generally known. In addition, it was also taken up by Vladimir Obruchev with " Plutonien ". The country " Pellucidar " by Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs is on the inner surface of a hollow Earth.

In Arno Schmidt's satire " Tina or immortality " (1955) is located in the hollow earth the " Elysium ", in which all people live as long as they are still thought the earth - what affects people whose memory is preserved in writing.

The Steampunk novel " hollow world " (AKA The Hollow Earth) of the mathematician and science fiction author Rudy Rucker is about people (in this context Erdoberflächenbewohnern ), among them Edgar Allan Poe, in the ( fictional ) world inside the earth descend. In the epilogue, the author gives a brief summary of the origins of the novel, the historical sources used, the gravitational conditions in a hollow sphere and the wormhole, which is in its version of the Hollow Earth theory in the center of the hollow earth.

Even the stories of Myst epic based on a civilization that existed in the interior of the earth: the people of D' ni. In the corresponding series of novels (see The Book of Atrus ( Myst ) ) the culture and habitats D' ni are described in detail.

In his 2006 novel Against the Day describes the American author Thomas Pynchon in a pastiche on the adventure literature of the early 1900's, as an airship crosses the Earth through its hollow interior from pole to pole.

Since 2006, a radio drama series deals with the myth of the cave earth. In " The Black Sun " by Günter Merleau ( eavesdropping - Fantastic radio plays ), the Hollow Earth theory is put into the context of real - historical and fictional plot elements.

In the Canadian Science-Fiction-/Mystery-Fernsehserie Sanctuary - Keeper of the creatures (from Season 3, Episode 6 ) played the hollow earth a recurring role in the occurrence of abnormal.

Credentials

• E. Halley: An account of the cause of the change of the variation of the magnetical needle with on hypothesis of the structure of the internal parts of the earth. Proposed as it what to the Royal Society in one of Their later meetings, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 17 (1692) 563-578
• E. Halley: An Account of the Late Surprizing Appearance of the Lights Seen in the Air, on the Sixth of March Last; With an Attempt to Explain the Principal Phenomena thereof; As It Was Laid before the Royal Society by Edmund Halley, JVD Savilian Professor of Geom Oxon, and Reg Soc. Secr, Philosophical transactions, xxix ( 1716), 406-428