The Invention of Clouds How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies

by Hamblyn, Richard

• ISBN13: 9780312420017
• ISBN10: 0312420013
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-08-03
• Publisher: Picador

Summary

Winner of theLos Angeles TimesBook Prize The early years of the nineteenth century saw an intriguing yet little-known scientific advance catapult a shy young Quaker to the dizzy heights of fame.The Invention of Cloudstells the extraordinary story of an amateur meteorologist, Luke Howard, and his groundbreaking work to define what had hitherto been random and unknowable structuresclouds. In December 1802, Luke Howard delivered a lecture that was to be a defining point in natural history and meteorology. He named the clouds, classifying them in terms that remain familiar to this day: cirrus, stratus, cumulus, and nimbus. This new and precise nomenclature sparked worldwide interest and captured the imaginations of some of the century's greatest figures in the fields of art, literature, and science. Goethe, Constable, and Coleridge were among those who came to revere Howard's vision of an aerial landscape. Legitimized by the elevation of this new classification and nomenclature, meteorology fast became a respectable science. Although his work is still the basis of modern meteorology, Luke Howard himself has long been overlooked. Part history of science, part cultural excavation,The Invention of Cloudsis a detailed and informative examination of Howard's life and achievements and introduces a new audience to the language of the skies.

Author Biography

Richard Hamblyn was born in 1965 and is a graduate of the universities of Essex and Cambridge, where he wrote a doctoral dissertation on the early history of geology in Britain. He lives and works in London.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix
Prologue: The Useless Pursuit of Shadows	1	(3)
The Theatre of Science	4	(11)
A Brief History of Clouds	15	(18)
The Cloud Messenger	33	(7)
Scenes from Childhood	40	(22)
The Askesian Society	62	(28)
Other Classifications	90	(22)
Publication	112	(29)
Growing Influence	141	(25)
Fame	166	(18)
The Beaufort Scale	184	(20)
Goethe and Constable	204	(27)
The International Year of Clouds	231	(18)
Epilogue: Afterlife	249	(6)
Appendix: Cloud Species and Varieties	255	(4)
Notes	259	(24)
Acknowledgements	283	(2)
Index	285

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