1. What is the intellectual revolution all about?

Continental drift, developed by geophysicist and meteorologist Alfred Wegener in the years 1908-1912,
was a revolutionary scientific theory that explains the shift of the continent’s position on the surface of
the earth. This theory states why some animals, plants and rock formations are similar from the other
land mass, as all the continents were once joined as a super-continent called “Pangaea” before splitting
up and drifting apart forming their present positions as continents, about 200-300 million years ago. He
then explained the mechanism for continental drift that the drift moves westwards due to tidal force,
because the motion of the earth rotates from west to east making the tidal currents to move from east
to west. Another is that the drift moves equatorward because earth’s landmass was created by a
centrifugal force to the equator due of the earth’s rotation making the movement move toward the
equator. This theory was called “Pole-fleeting force” but rejected by the scientific community because it
was calculated that the rotation of the earth was insufficient to move continents.

3. How did the revolution advance modern science and scientific thinking at the time.

Close examination of the earth often observed as all continents seem to fit together as a giant puzzle. In
1912, Alfred Wegener also noticed the same thing and proposed the theory of the continental drift. His
death in 1930 also ended the discussion of continental drift but resurrected in 1950’s to 1960’s for the
further exploration of the seafloor and seismology. The proof of seafloor spreading and mantle
convection, and the seafloor of the earth’s changing magnetic field led the theory of Plate Tectonics.
These plates make the outer shell of the earth called the lithosphere. Their movements create three
types of boundaries: convergent, divergent, and transform. These boundaries made the continents to
split apart and forming the mountains, volcanoes, trenches and mountain ranges. This is the missing
mechanism in the original theory of Wegener, and by 1960’s the continental drift evolved into widely
accepted theory of today, the tectonic plates. With this great discovery, it contributed to the scientific
sources and refinement towards scientific truth.