Topic: Athanasius Kircher

Tim Swartz discusses the historical scientific interest in the hollow earth, citing 17th-century figures like Sir Edmund Halley and Athanasius Kircher. Halley proposed a model of the earth consisting of concentric spheres similar to Russian nesting dolls. The discussion notes that while modern geology uses seismic waves to map the interior, humanity has only physically drilled a few miles deep, leaving much of the planet's core a matter of speculation.

Harry Hubbard discusses a 1663 map of Atlantis by Athanasius Kircher, which Hubbard claims was based on a version of Plato's writings that has since been "sanitized." According to Hubbard, Kircher described a mountain range in Atlantis that was honeycombed by advanced mining machines, leading to the island's eventual collapse. Hubbard places the location of Atlantis along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

Rand Flem-Ath discusses Athanasius Kircher, a 17th-century Jesuit priest who published a map of Atlantis in 1665. Though Kircher interpreted the map as being in the North Atlantic, Flem-Ath notes that when the map is inverted (as south was originally "up"), it bears a startling resemblance to a geophysical map of an ice-free Antarctica. This map accurately depicted landmasses relative to South America and Madagascar centuries before modern seismic surveys.