Roberto Mantovani

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Roberto Mantovani

Roberto Mantovani (born March 25, 1854 in Parma , † January 10, 1933 in Paris ) was an Italian geoscientist and violinist .

Mantovani's father, Timoteo, died six months after Roberto's birth. His mother, Luigia Ferrari, directed him in his studies, and at the age of eleven he was accepted as a boarding school student at the Royal School of Music, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1872 . Mantovani always preferred the exact sciences and literature over music.

Mantovani published a theory of earth expansion in 1889 and 1909 . He assumed that a closed continent covered the entire surface of what was then a much smaller earth. Due to volcanic activity due to thermal expansion , this continent broke apart, with the newly formed continents moving further and further apart, as the erosion zones expanded further and further and now form the area of ​​the oceans. Alfred Wegener saw similarities to his own theory of continental drift and recognized Mantovani as one of his predecessors, but he did not mention Mantovani's Earth expansion hypothesis. Wegener wrote:

“In 1909 Mantovani expressed ideas about continent shifts in a short article and explained them with cards, some of which differ from mine, but in some places, such as B. in relation to the former grouping of the southern continents around South Africa, astonishingly agree. "

- Alfred Wegener, 1929

Individual evidence

  1. ^ G. Scalera,: Roberto Mantovani an Italian defender of the continental drift and planetary expansion . In: G. Scalera and K.-H. Jacob (Ed.): Why expanding Earth? - A book in honor of OC Hilgenberg . Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Rome 2003, p. 71-74 .
  2. ^ R. Mantovani: Les fractures de l'écorce terrestre et la théorie de Laplace . In: Bull. Soc. Sc. et Arts Réunion . 1889, p. 41-53 .
  3. ^ R. Mantovani: L'Antarctide . In: Je m'instruis. La science pour tous . tape 38 , 1909, pp. 595-597 .
  4. ↑ A. Wegener: The emergence of the continents and oceans . Friedrich Vieweg & Sohn Akt. Ges., Braunschweig 1929.
personal data
SURNAME Mantovani, Roberto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian geoscientist and violinist
DATE OF BIRTH March 25, 1854
PLACE OF BIRTH Parma
DATE OF DEATH January 10, 1933
Place of death Paris