Walker highlights the "wacky characters" behind these breakthroughs: Go to product viewer dialog for this item.
25+ Copies Paperback An Ocean Of Air (Why the Wind Blows and Other Mysteries of the Atmosphere) by Gabrielle Walker, 9780156034142 An Ocean of Air: Why the Wind Blows and Other M...
: A one-eyed barnstorming pilot discovered invisible "rivers of air" five miles above the Earth that blow with hurricane force. In her book , Gabrielle Walker reveals that
: William Ferrel, a self-taught 19th-century American farmer, used a pitchfork to carve equations into a barn door to explain why hurricanes move in circles and how heat flows from the equator to the poles. The Human Side of Discovery : Renaissance scientist
In her book , Gabrielle Walker reveals that we don’t just live in the air; we live because of it. This popular science work explores the history of atmospheric discovery through the stories of eccentric mavericks who unmasked the "invisible" substance surrounding us. Key Scientific Revelations
: Reclusive genius Oliver Heaviside predicted a "mirror in the sky"—a layer of electrically charged metal that allows radio signals to bounce around the globe, a discovery that would later aid in the rescue of the Titanic. The Human Side of Discovery
: Renaissance scientist Evangelista Torricelli, a disciple of Galileo, was the first to realize we live "submerged at the bottom of an ocean of air". To illustrate its mass, the air filling a space like Carnegie Hall weighs approximately 70,000 pounds .
