International Geophysical Year

The International Geophysical Year or IGY was an international scientific effort that lasted from July 1, 1957, to December 31, 1958.

The IGY encompassed eleven Earth sciences: aurora and airglow, cosmic rays, geomagnetism, glaciology, gravity, ionospheric physics, longitude and latitude determinations (precision mapping), meteorology, oceanography, seismology and solar activity.

Both the U.S. and the Soviet Union launched artificial satellites for this event; the Soviet Union's Sputnik 1 of October 1957 was the first successful artificial satellite. Other significant achievements of the IGY included the discovery of the Van Allen Belts and the discovery of mid-ocean submarine ridges, an important confirmation of plate tectonics.

Motivation

There had been two preceding International Polar Years, from 1882 to 1883 and from 1932 to 1933. In the 1950s new instrumentation, including especially rocketry and seismography, inspired U.S. scientist Lloyd Berkner to propose a third polar year. The IGY was chosen to occur during a solar maximum, during which some unusual effects of the sun on the Earth might be observed.

TIME magazine reported in 1959, "In 1950 an event occurred that began small but was to affect the future (of Van Allen and all his countrymen). In March of 1950, British Physicist Sydney Chapman (astronomer) dropped in on James Van Allen [and] remarked that he would like to meet other scientists in the Washington area. Van Allen got on the phone, soon gathered eight or ten top scientists (Lloyd Berkner, S. Fred Singer, and Harry Vestinein) the living room of his small brick house. "It was what you might call a pedigreed bull session," he says. "The talk turned to geophysics and the two ‘International Polar Years' that had enlisted the world's leading nations to study the Arctic and Antarctic regions in 1882 and 1932. Someone suggested that with the development of new tools such as rockets, radar and computers, the time was ripe for a worldwide geophysical year. The other men were enthusiastic, and their enthusiasm spread around the world from Washington D.C.

From this meeting Lloyd Berkner and other participants proposed to the International Council of Scientific Unions that an International Geophysical Year (IGY) be planned for 1957-58 — during the maximum solar activity. Mr. Berkner served as president of the ICSU from 1957-59 and as a member of President Eisenhower's Scientific Advisory Committee in 1958. "The International Geophysical Year (1957-58) stimulated the U.S. Government to promise earth satellites as geophysical tools. The Soviet government countered by rushing its Sputniks into orbit. The race into space or Space Race may be said to have started from the initial enthusiasm on that April 5, 1950 evening in Silver Spring, Maryland (Van Allen's living room)."

see the article International Polar Year.

Antarctica

IGY triggered an eighteen-month year of Antarctic science. The International Council of Scientific Unions, a parent body, broadened the proposals from polar studies to geophysical research. More than 70 existing national scientific organizations then formed IGY committees, and participated in the cooperative effort.

Trivia

IGY is featured in a song of the same name on Donald Fagen's solo album, The Nightfly. The song reminds the listener of the scientific optimism of the 1950s, describing a utopian vision of a future Earth, which stands in poignant contrast to the disillusionment of later decades, possibly most poignant for those who were children during the 1950s, because their loss of childhood innocence-coincided with the culture's loss of that scientific utopianism. Beneath the utopian gee-whiz splendor there is a dark hint of the desperateness of the cold war.

What a beautiful world this will beWhat a glorious time to be free[...]Well by seventy-six we'll be A.O.K.[...]A just machine to make big decisionsprogrammed by fellows with compassion and vision

See also

*List of Antarctica expeditions

External links

*University of Saskatchewan Archives
*History of ionosondes, at the U.K.'s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
*History of arctic exploration
* James Van Allen, From High School to the Beginning of the Space Era: A Biographical Sketch by George Ludwig