Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy . You may unsubscribe at any time. Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy is one of the most famous Italian literary works, if not the most famous. The medieval narrative poem is divided into three sections— Inferno (Hell) , Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Paradise)—and chronicles Dante’s  fictional travels through the three regions. However, Marshall University English professor Timothy Burbery , says that Dante is more than just an author and character. He’s also an accidental geophysicist. Simply put, Burbery argues that Dante’s Inferno demonstrates an intuitive understanding of certain aspects of geophysics and geology long before they were formally discovered by scientists.…