Article: Nansen, Fridtjof

Nansen, Fridtjof

Norwegian Arctic Explorer and Oceanographer 1861 1930

The science of oceanography was in its infancy in 1893 when Fridtjof Nansen, a 32-year-old Norwegian, purposely allowed his ship, the Fram, to be captured in an Arctic ice pack. Through this deliberate act, Nansen hoped to prove his theory that the Arctic current flowed from Siberia towards the North Pole and then southward to Greenland. The way to show this to be true, Nansen reasoned, was to create a specially built ship that would not be crushed by ice so that he could drift in the ship wherever the ice pack moved. If the Fram (meaning "Forward") was carried close enough, Nansen also hoped to become the ...

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