An Ocean of Air: Why the Wind Blows and Other Mysteries of the Atmosphere - Hardcover

Walker, Gabrielle

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151011249 ISBN 13: 9780151011247

Verlag: Houghton Mifflin, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

Book by Walker Gabrielle

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Reseña del editor

We spend our lives surrounded by air, hardly even noticing it. It’s the most miraculous substance on earth, yet responsible for our food, our weather, our water, and our ability to hear. In fact, we live at the bottom of an ocean of air. In this exuberant book, gifted science writer Gabrielle Walker peels back the layers of our atmosphere with the stories of the people who uncovered its secrets:

· A flamboyant Renaissance Italian discovers how heavy our air really is: The air filling Carnegie Hall, for example, weighs seventy thousand pounds.

· A one-eyed barnstorming pilot finds a set of winds that constantly blow five miles above our heads.

· An impoverished American farmer figures out why hurricanes move in a circle by carving equations with his pitchfork on a barn door.

· A well-meaning inventor nearly destroys the ozone layer.

· A reclusive mathematical genius predicts, thirty years before he’s proved right, that the sky contains a layer of floating metal fed by the glowing tails of shooting stars.

Contraportada

We don’t just live in the air. We live because of it. . . .
"Who knew air could be so interesting? Like the scientific mavericks she profiles, Gabrielle Walker had the freshness of vision to realize that within its presumed-nothingness lay the most fascinating, profound revelations about life on earth. This is science writing at its best: clear, witty, relevant, unbelievably interesting, and just plain great."-- Mary Roach, author of Stiff: The Curious Lives Of Human Cadavers

"The subject is hot, the science is cool, and Gabrielle Walker's style is lighter than air. Warmly recommended." --Jonathan Weiner, author of The Beak of the Finch

"Extraordinary . . . The scientists are almost as interesting as their science."?Simon Singh

"[Walker provides] counter-intuitive delights... This is a fabulous introduction to the world above our heads."--Mail on Sunday (UK)

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: Houghton Mifflin
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0151011249
• ISBN 13: 9780151011247
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 272