Name of Scientist | Year/Date Discovered | Description of the Inventor | Nicolaus Copernicus(Astronomer) | 1473-1543 | proposed a model of the solar system that involved the Earth revolving around the sun. The model wasn't completely correct, as astronomers of the time struggled with the backwards path Mars sometimes took, but it eventually changed the way many scientists viewed the solar system. | Galileo Galilei(Astronomer) | 1564-1642 | he discovered the four primary moons of Jupiter (now known as the Galilean moons), as well as the rings of Saturn. Though a model of the Earth circling the sun was first proposed by Copernicus, it took some time before it became widely accepted. | Albert Einstein(Astronomer) | 1879-1955 | Einstein suggested that the laws of physics are the same throughout the universe, that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant, and that space and time are linked in an entity known as space-time, which is distorted by gravity | John Dalton(Meteorologist) | 1787 | Dalton was trying to explain why gases stay mixed, instead of settling out in layers in the atmosphere. Atomic weights were basically an afterthought in a paper he presented, and he was encouraged to study them further. | Cleveland Abbe(Meteorologist) | 1871 | Cleveland Abbe inaugurated a public weather service that served as a model for the national weather service, which was organized shortly thereafter as a branch of the U.S. Army Signal Service. In 1871 he was appointed chief meteorologist of the branch, which in 1891 was reorganized as the U.S. Weather Bureau (later the National Weather Service), and he served in that capacity more than 45 years | Vladimir Alekseevich Abazarov(Geologist) | 1930 - 2003 | He took part in discovering of large and unique oil fields in Western Siberia. V. A. Abazarov is a discoverer of the largest Russian Samotlor oil field. | James Cook(Oceanographer) | 1728 - 1779 | British navigator and captain in the Royal Navy who charted New Zealand and Australia's Great Barrier Reef on his ship, Endeavour, and provided the first accurate map of the Pacific Ocean. | Aristotle (Oceanographer) | | wrote about the formation of frogs from damp earth & of mice from decaying grain | Eratosthenes | 384– 322 BC | Observations supporting a spherical earth were recorded by Aristotle (384– 322 BC) in the fourth century BC. Eratosthenes knew this and wanted to measure earth’s circumference. Since no one could walk or sail around the earth, Eratosthenes realized he would have to somehow deduce earth’s circumference from observations he could make. | James Hutton | | He came up with the 'principal of uniformitarianism' which basically means the present is the key to the past, like how plants grew, volcanoes erupted etc is the same as how it was in the past as how it works in the present.the principle is used in the study of geology to help explain what earth was like millions of years ago. |

Alfred Wegener was the scientist who proposed the Continental Drift Theory in the early twentieth century. Simply put, his hypothesis proposed that the continents had once been joined, and over time had drifted apart. The jigsaw fit that the continents make with each other can be seen looking at the map of soil types below (derived from University of Idaho). South America can be dragged and rotated (rotating is tricky by touch) so you can try to see how well it joins with Africa.

Wegener did not even present Continental Drift as a proven theory. He knew he would need more support to convince others. His immediate goal was to have the concept openly discussed. These modest goals did not spare him. His work crossed disciplines. The authorities in the various disciplines attacked him as an amateur that did not fully grasp their own subject. More importantly however, was that even the possibility of Continental Drift was a huge threat to the authorities in each of the disciplines.