Inge Lehmann

Lived 1888 1993.

Inge Lehmann overturned the idea that our planets metallic core is entirely molten liquid. She used
mathematics to analyze the way energy released by earthquakes travels through the earth.
She discovered something eternally concealed from the naked eye thousands of miles below our
feet, at its center, the earth is solid. In fact, it has a solid inner core and a liquid outer core.
Inge Lehmann is also remarkable in that she is one of the longest lived scientists in history, living to
104 years of age.

Beginnings
Inge Lehmann was born in Denmarks capital city, Copenhagen, on May 13, 1888. Her father, Alfred
Georg Ludvik Lehmann, was a psychologist and her mother, Ida Sophie Trsleff, was a housewife.
Both parents came from prominent families.
She was a very shy girl, who did not enjoy being in the spotlight. She continued to be shy throughout
her long life.
Inge was schooled at a private coeducational school called Fllesskolen which translates
as shared school. The school was new: it had been founded when Inge was 5 years old by Hanna
Adler, a wealthy woman.
Hanna Adlers new school was unusual in that boys and girls were treated identically, studying the
same subjects and taking part in the same sports and activities. The children were not disciplined as
rigorously as in other schools of that time.

Inge Lehmann enjoyed her time at the Fllesskolen, but she was sometimes bored, because she
did not feel challenged enough by the schoolwork.
In 1906, at the age of 18, she passed the entrance examination for Copenhagen University with a
first rank mark.

University
Lehmann started freshman courses in mathematics, chemistry and physics at Copenhagen
University in 1907. She finally graduated in 1920.
It took her an exceptionally long time to get a degree: in 1911 she had returned to Copenhagen after
a year at Cambridge University completely burned out; she then abandoned her studies to do
actuarial work for an insurance company. She did actuarial work until 1918, when she returned to
university, finally graduating with a mathematics degree in 1920, aged 32.
In 1923, she began working as an assistant in Copenhagen Universitys actuarial department. In
1925 she shifted to seismology work with Professor Niels Nrlund.
She learned that the internal structure of our planet can be understood through the study of
earthquake data. She visited seismic stations in Germany, the Netherlands and France learning
about techniques for analyzing the earths movements.
Lehmann was captivated by her new academic field and, in 1928, aged 40, she obtained a Master of
Science degree in geodesy (the science of making measurements related to planet Earth).

Seismic data measured at different stations of an earthquake in Mexico in 1928 published by Inge Lehmann
in 1930. Lehmann, I., The earthquake of 22 III 1928, Gerlands Beitr. Geophys., 28, 151, 1930

Earth Research
In 1928, Lehmann was appointed head of the Department of Seismology at the Royal Danish
Geodetic Institute, with responsibility for running the Copenhagen, Ivigtut and Scoresbysund
seismographic observatories.
Her job was administrative, but she made time for scientific research, including improving the
coordination and analysis of measurements from Europes seismographic observatories. This was
important, because it ensured data from the observatories could be better compared and interpreted.
Lehmanns actions to improve the trustworthiness of measurements lay at the heart of her later
discovery.

A 1926 magazine cover illustrating a scene from Jule Vernes Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Dreaming of a World Deep Below

The interior of our planet has long held a fascination for philosophers and story tellers.
Some have speculated that another inhabited world lies beneath our own.
In 1864, Jules Verne published Journey to the Center of the Earth, describing the fictional
adventures of explorers traveling under our planets surface.
It was a best-seller.
People wondered if the world Verne had described below our own could be real.

Disappointed Dreamers
By the time Lehmann was awarded her Masters degree in 1928, scientists had already realized that
seismographic data from earthquakes could be used to deduce what sort of stuff Earths interior was
made of.
To the dismay of many dreamers, seismologists had ruled out Jules Vernes ideas of another
inhabited world below Earths surface.

Seismologists had figured out that vibrations from earthquakes travel through the earth. Some travel
as transverse waves (S-waves,) and others as longitudinal waves (P-waves). The time these waves
took to travel from an earthquakes epicenter to different seismic observatories around the world
revealed information about the paths the waves had taken through the earth.
The path of earthquake waves through our planet depends on the materials the waves travel through
and the boundaries between these materials.

Paths of different wave-types moving out from the focus of an earthquake. The P-waves are fast moving
longitudinal waves. The S-waves are slower moving transverse waves.

In 1906, Richard Dixon Oldham analyzed seismic waves from several earthquakes and concluded
that the earth has a large, liquid, metallic core. He calculated this core made up the inner 40 percent
of our planets radius. (We now know the core Oldham discovered comprises the innermost 3470 km
of Earths 6360 km radius.)

A Puzzle
Although Oldham had discovered Earths metallic core, seismologists still did not completely
understand the meaning of the data recorded at their observatories.
Lehmann and other workers were puzzled about the behavior of the P-waves. Earthquake data from
observatories showed these were not traveling through Earth in the way they were expected to.
They were appearing in locations they ought not to.
Lehmann had an idea. People believed that Earth, below its solid crust, was molten. She wondered
if our planets inner core might actually be solid. If it were solid, surrounded by molten liquid, would
that account for the odd behavior of the P-waves?
She developed mathematical models of our planet featuring a solid inner core and Eureka! Such a
planet agreed with the observed data. Lehmann was able to conclude that P-waves were appearing
in unexpected locations because they were being refracted and reflected to these locations by the

boundary between the Earths solid inner core and liquid outer core. The inner core, she calculated,
had a radius of about 1400 km.
Lehmann published her findings in 1936, in a paper titled very simply P. Within a few years her new
model of the earths inner structure had been generally, if not completely, accepted by the scientific
community. With the passage of time as ever more accurate seismic measurements were taken,
confirming Lehmanns work, the solid core became completely accepted.
We now know the solid core Inge Lehmann discovered:

is about the same temperature as the suns surface!

is made of iron-nickel alloy

is solid because of the enormous pressure from the outer layers of the earth pushing down
on it

has a radius of 1220 km, making it somewhat smaller than the moon

Ingehadgreatenergy,bothmentalandphysical.Sheloved
mountains,particularlyinSwitzerland.InthecitationfortheBowiemedalin
1971FrancisBirchdrewattentiontotheeconomyofthetitleofher1936
paper,P,andprovidedwhatcouldbeafittingepitaph,describingherasthe
masterofablackart[seismologycalculations]forwhichnoamountof
computerizingislikelytobeacompletesubstitute.
BERTHASWIRLES
Physicist
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 35:2 231, 1994.

Retirement? Not Really

Lehmann retired from her position at the Geodetic Institute in 1953, aged 65. This freed her from
administrative work, allowing her to spend more time on her true passion scientific research
much of which she carried out in lengthy stays in the USA and Canada.

During her retirement she discovered Lehmann discontinuities in 1959, which have not been fully
explained even today. (A Lehmann discontinuity is a step-change increase in seismic wave speeds
in the earths mantle at depths of 180 to 250 km below the surface.)
In 1987, aged 99, she wrote her last scientific article:Seismology in the Days of Old. In 1988, she
attended the party held for her hundredth birthday at her old workplace, the Geodetic Institute.

Imayhavebeen15or16yearsoldwhen,onaSundaymorning,
Iwassittingathometogetherwithmymotherandsister,andthefloorbegan
tomoveunderus.Thehanginglampswayed.Itwasverystrange.Myfather
cameintotheroom.Itwasanearthquake,hesaid.Thecenterhadevidently
beenataconsiderabledistance,forthemovementsfeltslowandnotshaky.
Inspiteofagreatdealofeffort,anaccurateepicenterwasneverfound.This
wasmyonlyexperiencewithanearthquakeuntilIbecameaseismologist20
yearslater.
INGELEHMANN

Honors
1938: Tagea Brandt Award
1941, 1944: Chair of Danish Geophysical Society
1950: President of the European Seismological Federation
1960: Gordon Wood Award
1964: Emil Wiechert Medal of the German Geophysical Society
1965: Gold Medal of the Danish Royal Society
1969: Elected Fellow of the British Royal Society
1971: The William Bowie Medal
1977: Medal of the Seismological Society of America
The American Geophysical Union established the Inge Lehmann Medal in 1997 to be awarded
foroutstanding contributions to the understanding of the structure, composition, and dynamics of the
Earths mantle and core.

The End
Inge Lehmann died at the age of 104 on February 21, 1993. She had not married and had no
children. She left all of her possessions to The Danish Academy.