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The Upright Thinkers by Leonard Mlodinow A book for science lovers and for anyone interested in creative thinking and in our ongoing quest to understand our world. Learn more | See similar books
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You call the wispy high clouds of the December sky “cirrus”. So does the German, Spaniard, Russian, Afrikaner… We have a common language for speaking of clouds due to a remarkable Quaker chemist, Luke Howard, who codified and named clouds (in Latin, the scientific language then and now) according to the behavior he had observed.
In "The Invention of Clouds," Richard Hamblyn tells us not only about the life, times and work of this amateur meteorologist, but also about his remarkable colleagues in science.
Howard lived in London at the end of the 18th century, when the intellectual life of Europe was aboil with new theories of natural philosophy—science—and young intellectuals found their way to the coffee-house to debate their favorites in a heady atmosphere of stock trading, tobacco-smoking, drug experimentation and science.
The Royal Society was nearly one hundred years old, and was essentially closed to the Quaker Howard. In any case, it was the society for “old fogies”; the coffee-house set formed dozens of societies of their own. Howard was “discovered” by Alexander Tilloch, a Scottish-born publisher and magazine editor, who then introduced his work to the Askesian Society, a group founded by three Quakers specifically as a debating club. The Askesians preferred a more interactive inquiry than the sedate Royal Society functions. Howard’s first presentation of “On Modifications of Clouds” was made in this hurly-burly venue.
Hamblyn makes clear that it is not only Howard’s work that is seminal in this tale.Read more ›
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Davy, Newton, Marconi, Babbage, Ben Franklin, John Bartram, Fitzroy, Admiral Beaufort with his storm scale, Flavio Gioja with the gimballed compass, John Harrison and his efforts to build a practical chronometer to give us Longitude, Maury and his paths across the seas ... what giants walked the earth then. And now we add the name of yet another dissenter, Luke Howard whose brilliance gave us the nomenclature of clouds and Meteorology.
Giants of the Royal Society, a great story, well written and researched and charmingly presented with illustrations that make clear why this research and conclusion on the weather is so important .. and not just to English either!
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Until the early nineteenth century, there was no unified system within any scientific or meteorological community for either naming or classifying clouds. The texts produced by nearly all ancient civilizations, the Chinese Shang Dynasty, and in addition Aristotle, Plato, and much later, Descartes, Linnaeus (much too rigidly) and many others had sought to analyze and describe clouds. Hamblyn notes that clouds' observed properties had been variously cited over time in order to reinforce the status quo in politics, philosophy, and religion - or to promote ideas (offensive to Napoleon among many others) about the zodiac, divination, and prophecy. Lamarck had attempted classification of clouds. He published vivid descriptions that were, as it turned out, of no real scientific use. English amateur meteorologist Luke Howard had thought about this problem for quite some time. In 1802 he delivered his address, "On the Modification of Clouds," to a teeming lecture hall in London. His seven "modifications" of clouds were cirrus, cirrocumulus, cirrostratus, cumulus, cumulostratus, nimbus, and stratus. (If you never have been able to memorize the list, you're in good company: contemporary complaints included the gripe that, innovative or not, "the seven 'easy ' names [were] doggedly difficult to remember.") Despite the Latin, his news was received with great enthusiasm - although there would eventually be controversy regarding nomenclature, with British colleagues urging the use of the mother tongue. Howard described not only the look of clouds, but the specifics of their formation, structure and behavior.Read more ›
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Part of the overarching scientific revolution of the early nineteenth century was that we gained a language to talk about clouds, and surprisingly, this language was the invention of one man, an amateur meteorologist whose work is still the foundation for cloud observation today. The impressive and rather sweet story of how Luke Howard bequeathed clouds to scientific discussion and study is told in _The Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies_ (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) by Richard Hamblyn. You may not have heard of Howard, but you have spoken his language. Howard was born to a Quaker family in 1772 in London. Perhaps the greatest influence in his life was his stern father, who would give advice like "What does idleness produce but mischief of every kind?" This advice he must have thought especially needed by his son, who had a lifelong passion for staring out the window and looking at the sky. Fortunately, Howard found work that allowed him to associate with other young men in a scientific improvement society, and he gradually developed his classification system. From his long hours of loving observation, he defined and illustrated three main cloud forms, now familiar to us: cirrus, cumulus, and stratus. There were intermediate forms, for a total of seven, which he also defined and illustrated. He presented his system in a lecture in 1802, at a time when popular lectures on chemistry and electricity would excite crowds into swooning enthusiasm. The drab, undramatic Howard, attired in his unadorned Quaker garb, modest and full of trepidation, managed to give a presentation of his categories illustrated by his watercolors. It was found thrilling first by the audience in the theater, and thereafter by those who found his essay in print.Read more ›
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This item: The Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies
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