Conversation: If I Am Right, and I Know I Am: Inge Lehmann, the Woman Who Discovered Earth’s Innermost Secret

Conversation: If I Am Right, and I Know I Am: Inge Lehmann, the Woman Who Discovered Earth’s Innermost Secret

From Lost Women of Science by Lost Women of Science

April 1, 2026 · 36 min

About this episode

This episode features a conversation about Inge Lehmann, the pioneering seismologist who discovered Earth's solid inner core.

In this episode of Lost Women of Science Conversations , host Carol Sutton Lewis speaks with science writer Hanne Strager about her biography of Inge Lehmann, the pioneering Danish seismologist who discovered that Earth has a solid inner core.. Largely unknown outside scientific circles, Lehmann fundamentally transformed our understanding of what lies at the heart of our planet. She did this in 1936 by identifying anomalies in earthquake waves that others had overlooked. At the time, scientists believed Earth’s core was entirely liquid. Lehmann proposed instead that a solid inner core lay hidden within it — a groundbreaking insight that reshaped geophysics. In revisiting Lehmann’s story, Strager highlights that Lehmann’s legacy is one of resilience and perseverance — proof that early setbacks do not define a life, and that brilliance can flourish, even later in life. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

People in this episode

Host: Carol Sutton Lewis

Guest: Hanne Strager

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Lost Women of Science, geophysics

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