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Inge Lehmann's Paper: “ P'” (1936) 262 Classic Paper Classic Paper in the History of Geology Inge Lehmann's paper: “ P'” (1936) "We take it that, as before, the Earth consists of a core and a man- (quoted after Bolt, 1997). It was around tle, but that inside the core there is an inner core in which the that time that Lehmann "heard for the velocity is larger than in the outer one." — Lehmann (1936). first time that knowledge of the Earth's interior composition could be obtained from the observations of the seismo- graphs. I was strongly interested in this In 1936, the Danish seismologist Inge Lehmann and started reading about it" (Lehmann, (1888–1993), who worked for the Danish Geodetic 1987). In the summer of 1927, Lehmann received the opportunity to Institute from 1925 to 1952, suggested from the analysis visit some notable European seismic of P-wave data that the Earth must have an inner core stations: "I was sent abroad for three — an important breakthrough in the understanding of months. I spent one month with Profes- sor Beno Gutenberg in Darmstadt [Ger- the nature of the Earth's interior. many]. He gave me a great deal of his Figure 1 Inge Lehmann. time and invaluable help." (quoted after Photograph reproduced Bolt, 1997). She also paid short visits to from Brush (1980, Fig. 9) Inge Lehmann (1888–1993) Hamburg (Germany), Strasbourg (France), De Bilt (The Netherlands) and Inge Lehmann (Figure 1) was born on 13 May, 1888, near Copen- Uccle (Belgium) (Bolt, 1997). hagen, Denmark, one of two daughters of Alfred Lehmann, a profes- In the summer of 1928, Lehmann obtained a master's degree in sor of psychology at the University of Copenhagen, and his wife. geodesy from The University of Copenhagen, submitting a thesis on The child was sent to a small private school run by Hannah Adler, an a seismological topic. The same year, she was appointed chief of the aunt of physicist Niels Bohr. This school was co-educational, a fea- seismological department of the new geodetic institute, a post that ture that was rather unusual for the time (Bolt, 1997). As Lehmann she held until her retirement in 1953. Her task was to keep the instru- later recollected, boys and girls were treated alike: "[n]o difference ments in Copenhagen well adjusted and to instruct the staff of the between the intellect of boys and girls was recognised, a fact that remote Greenland stations. She interpreted the institute's seismo- brought some disappointment [to me] later in life when I had to grams and published the bulletins of the seismic stations. Most of the recognise that this was not the general attitude" (quoted after Brush, time, she did not have assistants, not even for office work. Original 1980). She had, for example, to reach the age of 27 before she could scientific research was not regarded as part of her duties, but she was take part in her first political election, since the right to vote was not free to pursue it, if she liked, and she published thirty-five papers granted to women in Denmark before 1915 (Bundesministerium für during the period of her appointment. Apart from her interest in the Frauen und Jugend, 1993). travel-time curves of the various types of seismic waves, which in In 1907, Lehmann entered the University of Copenhagen to 1936 led her to suggest the existence of an inner core for the Earth, study mathematics, and also attended courses in physics, chemistry, she made determinations on the reliability of seismic stations in and astronomy. (Women had been admitted to Danish universities Europe and discussed how to obtain meaningful observations. She from 1875 onwards [Rupp, 1978].) She took the first part of the also worked on small local earthquakes and on microseismic wave required examinations in 1910 and then continued her studies at motions generated by storms over the Arctic and North Sea (Bolt, Newnham College, Cambridge (U.K.), where she experienced "the 1997). severe restrictions inflicted on the conduct of young girls, restric- In 1936, Lehmann was one of the founders of the Danish Geo- tions completely foreign to a girl who had moved freely amongst physical Society, and in 1941 and 1944 she chaired the organisation boys and young men at home" (quoted after Bolt, 1997). Newnham (Bolt & Hjortenberg, 1994). (It was, it may be noted, the time of College was one of two women's colleges in Cambridge at that time, World War II, and male applicants for the position had become but though allowed to attend university lectures and sit the examina- scarce.) tions women were not admitted to university degrees before 1948 Lehmann's career was before the era when electronic computers (Alic, 1986). In December, 1911, Lehmann became seriously ill became available, so her organisation of data and computations was through overwork and was forced to return home, where she worked done 'by hand': for some years as a 'computer' or calculator in an actuary's office. In 1918, she resumed her university training as mathematician at The “I remember Inge one Sunday in her beloved garden on University of Copenhagen and graduated in the summer of 1920. Sobakkevej; it was in the summer and she sat in the lawn with a From February, 1923 onwards, she worked as assistant to the profes- big table filled with cardboard oatmeal boxes. In the boxes were sor in actuarial sciences. In 1925, she became assistant to Professor cardboard cards with information on earthquakes and the times N.E. Nörlund, Director of the geodetic institution Den Danske Grad- for these and times for their registration all over the world. This maaling (Bolt, 1997). was before computer processing was available, but the system Nörlund had become interested in establishing seismic stations was the same. With her cardboard cards and her oatmeal boxes, in Denmark and Greenland, and the best available seismographs Inge registered the velocity of propagation of the earthquakes to were used for the new stations (Lehmann, 1987). "I began to do seis- all parts of the globe. By means of this information, she deduced mic work and had some extremely interesting years in which I and new theories of the inner parts of the Earth.” (Nils Groes, a rela- three young men who had never seen a seismograph before were tive of Inge Lehmann, quoted by Bolt & Hjortenberg, 1994). active installing Wiechert, Galitzin-Wilip and Milne-Shaw seismo- graphs in Copenhagen and also helping to prepare the Greenland This method, without the help of assistants, was burdensome, installations. I studied seismology at the same time unaided …" but had the advantage that Lehmann personally saw and interpreted December 2001 263 the seismograms, paying attention not only to arrival times but also This is a simplified assumption, since in reality the velocity in to other (more descriptive) characteristics of the seismic waves, such the mantle (and again within the core) increases with depth as their relative amplitudes and 'shapes'. How this seemingly primi- more or less uniformly, due to the increasing density caused tive method helped with the discovery, e.g., of the inner core of the by the increasing pressure. There are also some smaller Earth becomes apparent in the second part of Lehmann's 'classic discontinuities within the Earth’s upper mantle, some of paper', P' (Lehmann, 1936; see below). which were already known when Lehmann wrote her paper. It was not easy for a woman to gain entry to the mathematical This simplification of the problem, omitting unnecessary and scientific establishment in the first half of the twentieth century. detail and complications, was seen as Lehmann’s strength As Lehmann said: "[y]ou should know how many incompetent men and later helped to gain recognition and acceptance of her I had to compete with — in vain" (Groes, in Bolt & Hjortenberg, idea. 1994). Lehmann tried to compensate for the disadvantages caused by prejudice against her gender by hard work. "Inge's grown-up life In Figure [2a = Fig. 1 in the original Lehmann paper] a ray passing was characterised by hard work, tough grind, a magnificent scientific only through the mantle has been drawn from the epicentre E to effort, and, finally, great academic appreciation." (Groes, in Bolt & point 1 on the surface. … Hjortenberg, 1994). Like most female scientists of her day, she never married. To have done so would almost certainly have meant the end Rays are lines drawn perpendicularly to the propagating of her scientific career. wave-front. Lehmann now calculates and explains what paths After her retirement in 1953, and when relieved from routine are to be expected for her simplified model of an Earth with a duties, Lehmann entered a second, fruitful research phase, working homogeneous mantle and core. For the purpose of our on the structure of the upper Earth's mantle and its seismic disconti- summarised version of Lehmann's paper we omit the nuities. She frequently visited seismic observatories in the USA and Canada. It was in this late phase of her career that she started to mathematics and only follow her graphical reasoning. Figure receive international recognition in the form of numerous awards for 2a of the present paper is not Lehmann's original figure but a her work and for her exceptional expertise in observing and inter- re-drawn version to make things clearer for non-specialist preting seismological raw data. "The Lehmann discontinuity [the readers. In Lehmann's simplified Earth model, the rays of the core/inner core boundary] was discovered through exacting scrutiny P-waves are straight lines. In reality, the rays in the mantle of seismic records by a master of a black art for which no amount of curve upwards, as shown in the inset to Figure 2b.
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