The accidental scientist

  What was the French explorer Jules Dumont d ’ Urville doing in Hobart on January 1 1840? Well, the South Magnetic Pole was attracting him like a magnet. So he set sails, followed his compass South and landed on the Antarctic coast on January 22. He didn ’ t quite get to the Magnetic Pole because in these days it was still on the Continent. If he tried again now he would get there all right because the Pole moved and is now about 200 km off shore. The Earth magnetic field originates from the core of our planet. The inner core is a solid sphere of nickel and iron. All it does is radiate a huge amount of heat. The outer core is liquid nickel and iron, and has huge electric currents spinning through it. It looks like a magnetic coil with its North pole pointing South. On the other side, the South pole of the magnet points North. This is why the North end of my compass points towards the North pole. Opposite poles attract! This huge electromagnet is not quite aligned with the Earth ro

I had a fascination for magnets and compasses all my life. My first respectable job was to look after a geomagnetic observatory on Crozet Islands for a year in 1977. Destiny maybe? Anyway, I just loved it and I still do! I live in a house in Piora. It was built in 1912 and when I looked at it for the first time, I saw its main veranda was facing North. Looking more closely on a sunny day at noon, I saw that indeed it was exactly facing the sun. The roof post shadows were square with the floorboards edges. How on Earth could they build something with such precision in 1912 still beats me, given that there is not one square angle in the whole structure! Last week I got my old hiking compass and put it on that floor. I aligned its edge to a board edge. Then I took the picture. Well, the compass needle is not quite square to the boards, is it? In fact it is about 12 degrees to the right, or to the East as navigators say. Is that normal? Yes, it is. What we are observing here is the magneti

  It ’ s official, I am a repeat offender. This is what they told me at the Antarctic Division during my training back in 1999. The reason: twenty years before that, I had wintered at the French station of Dumont d ’ Urville. I am not a polar hero but on some summer days in Casino I wish I was there. True, Dumont d ’ Urville can be a bit cool, like -30 ° in winter, but if you really want to experience real cold, you need to get to Vostok, right in the middle of the ice sheet at about 3500m of altitude. This is where the Russians confine themselves if Siberia is overbooked. They get -80 ° regularly, the record is -89 ° (1983). Dumont d ’ Urville climate is not unlike Davis station, which the Aussies call the Riviera. Back in the 80 ’ s when I was there, the average daily max hovered around -5 ° in summer, -17 ° in winter. The most unpleasant aspect of the climate was the wind. There is no wind at all at Vostok, but the air is much colder. So guess what: the air goes down the hi