Kant’s Gaseous Hypothesis
- Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher, proposed his theory of Earth’s origin in 1755.
- Kant’s theory was heavily influenced by Newton’s Law of Gravity.
- According to Kant, substances initially spread out in space were made of cold, unmoving solid particles. These particles collided due to gravity’s pull, generating heat and angular momentum, causing them to start spinning.
- This spinning led to the formation of a hot nebula, which rotated around a central object, creating strong centrifugal force that formed rings of matter.
- As these rings cooled, they formed planets and satellites.
- However, Kant’s hypothesis faced criticism for not explaining the source of energy that caused the motion of these celestial bodies.
Early Theories of the Earth| Class 11 Geography Notes
Early Theories of the Earth: The Earth and other planets in our solar system formed due to the pull of gravity. About 4.63 billion years ago, the solar system was a cloud of gas and dust called a “Nebula.” In this discussion, we’ll explore early theories about Earth’s origin, including Kant’s “Gaseous Hypothesis”, Laplace’s “Nebular Hypothesis” and also Chamberlin’s “Planetesimal Hypothesis” in this article. These notes are specially curated by an expert team at w3wiki for all the students for their better understanding and to help them in their examinations.
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