Research Catalog
An ocean of air : a natural history of the atmosphere / Gabrielle Walker.
- Title
- An ocean of air : a natural history of the atmosphere / Gabrielle Walker.
- Author
- Walker, Gabrielle
- Publication
- London : Bloomsbury, c2007.
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1 Item
| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Text | Request in advance | QC855 .W35 2007 | Off-site |
Holdings
Details
- Description
- 321 p. : ill., maps; 22 cm.
- Summary
- "Gabrielle Walker traces a journey of groundbreaking scientific discovery, from the Italian Renaissance scientist Torricelli, disciple of Galileo, who realised that we live at the bottom of a dense ocean of air, to the West Virginian farmhand William Ferrel, who unlocked the secrets of the trade winds by making calculations with a pitchfork on the back of a barn door. Then there is the hapless 1920s inventor Thomas Midgley, who when trying to solve a refrigeration problem inadvertently created chemicals that punched a hole In the sky, and the extraordinary American discovery at the height of the Cold War that space itself is radioactive."--Jacket.
- Subject
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Processing Action (note)
- committed to retain
- Contents
- Pt. 1: Comfort blanket -- The ocean above us -- Elixir of life -- Food and warmth -- Blowing in the wind -- pt. 2: Sheltering sky -- The hole story -- Mirror in the sky -- The final frontier.
- ISBN
- 9780747581901 (hbk.)
- 0747581908 (hbk.)
- OCLC
- 77012648
- Owning Institutions
- Harvard Library