IN THE ATTIC OF SCIENCE (3/6) – Poets have not been alone in dreaming of mysterious worlds hiding beneath our feet. Science too has been tempted by the idea of a planet made of shells separated from layers of air.
The idea that the Earth could be hollow seems both commonplace and absurd to us. Absurd, because today it is not based on any tangible scientific data; common, because it crosses all the literary, mythological and religious history of humanity. In a monumental bibliography, The Hollow Earths, published in 2009, Guy Costes and Joseph Altairac list and comment on 2,200 texts that refer more or less directly to subterranean worlds, most often imaginary. But this colorful pantheon, which goes from Plato to Jules Verne via Dante, also contains some great scientists. Starting with Descartes.
In 1644, the famous French philosopher and mathematician seems to be the first to formulate a “geological” theory evoking a hollow Earth. The idea is as follows: the Earth would originally consist of a core made of solar matter, then of a very dense layer of earth (from which the metals would come), followed by a layer of water, a…
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