Einstein och polskiftet

I frequently receive communications from people who wish to consult me concerning their unpublished ideas. It goes without saying that these ideas are very seldom possessed of scientific validity. The very first communication, however, that I received from Mr. Hapgood electrified me. His idea is original, of great simplicity, and — if it continues to prove itself — of great importance to everything that is related. to the history of the earth's surface.

A great many empirical data indicate that at each point on the earth's surface that has been carefully studied, many climatic changes have taken place, apparently quite suddenly. This, according to Hapgood, is explicable if the virtually rigid outer crust of the earth undergoes, from time to time, extensive displacement over the viscous, plastic, possibly fluid inner layers. Such displacements may take place as the consequence of comparatively slight forces exerted on the crust, derived from the earth's momentum of rotation, which in turn will tend to alter the axis of rotation of the earth's crust.

In a polar region there is continual deposition of ice, which is not symmetrically distributed about the pole. The earth's rotation acts on these unsymmetrically deposited masses, and produces centrifugal momentum that is transmitted to the rigid crust of the earth. The constantly increasing centrifugal momentum produced in this way will, when it has reached a certain point, produce a movement of the earth's crust over the rest of the earth's body, and this will displace the polar regions toward the equator.

Without a doubt the earth's crust is strong enough not to give way proportionately as the ice is deposited. The only doubtful assumption is that the earth's crust can be moved easily enough over the inner layers.

The author has not confined himself to a simple presentation of his idea. He has also set forth, cautiously and comprehensively, the extraordinarily rich material that supports his displacement theory. I think that this rather astonishing, even fascinating, idea deserves the serious attention of anyone who concerns himself with the theory of the earth's development.

To close with an observation that has occurred to me while writing these lines: If the earth's crust is really so easily displaced over its substratum as this theory requires, then the rigid masses near the earth's surface must be distributed in such a way that they give rise to no other considerable centrifugal momentum, which would tend to displace the crust by centrifugal effect. I think that this deduction might be capable of verification, at least approximately. This centrifugal momentum should in any case be smaller than that produced by the masses of deposited ice.

- Albert Einsteins förord till Charles Hapgoods The Earth's Shifting Crust (1958)

Med tanke på hur många vilda propåer av alla tänkbara och otänkbara slag vilken professor som helst kan välsignas med, så kan man bara försöka föreställa sig den flod av galenskap som Einstein måtte ha översköljts av, dagligen och stundligen. När han ur denna lavin plockar fram något korn som vinner hans gillande — kan det vara annat än bra..?

Jodå. Det kan vara allt annat än bra. Eftersom inte ens Albert var immun mot pseudovetenskap.

Vad det var hos Charles H. Hapgood som fångade hans intresse är en helt annan fråga. Den grundläggande idén är den som beskrivs i förordet (som för övrigt publicerades postumt, då Einstein avled 1955): Is och rotation får jordskorpan att, med mer eller mindre regelbundna mellanrum, välta överända, till skräck och förvirring hos alla vi kryp på ytan.

Hapgoods karriär i övrigt är talande, och erbjuder en rad tips för den som intresserar sig för historiska förvillelser. Han studerade Piri Reis karta, den där folk tyckt sig se ett anakronistiskt isfritt Antarktis; han intresserade sig för statyetterna från Acámbaro, firade artefakter i vissa läger; och så träffade han ett "medium" som pratade med spöken.