(Shane Stezelberger) writes:

Completely unrelated question: with all those geophysicists
crawling all over the world, getting all hot 'n geophysical, how
come the IGY failed to discover continental drift?

Well ... unless I'm mistaken, they kind of did. At least the
International Geophysical Year work found the mid-oceanic ridges, which
gave a way to explain the previously unanswerable question of how the
continents could drift through rock without breaking up (they don't; the
rock they sat on drifted). Combined with the data about magnetic ridges
along the sides of the plates and within half a decade continental drift
went from a slightly nutty, Thomas Gold-grade idea, to quite respectable
science.

Besides, like Albert Alligator said, if the geophysicists can't
measure the year more accurately than 18 months, are you going to trust
them when they get through with the tape measure?

Joseph Nebus
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