Nicolas Steno, recipient of a Google Doodle on Wednesday, was a 17th century brainiac with the type of weird genius that led to his discovery of the human salivary duct and a made him a pioneer in geology. But in the end, he threw it all over for God.
It was Steno, born this day in 1638, who slapped his forehead and said: "Hey, you can see history in these layered rocks." That simple yet profound observation was at the core of a 1669 treatise with a long and windy name: "The Prodromus of Nicolaus Steno's Dissertation Concerning a Solid Body Enclosed by Process of Nature Within a Solid."
Because of "Prodromus," many now see Steno as the "father of geology," according to James Aber, geology professor at Kansas' Emporia State University. But Steno's geology career lasted all of three years. And at the time, his contemporaries pooh-poohed him.
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