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Defining the Wind
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
While working as a copy editor two decades ago, Huler chanced across the Beaufort scale in Merriam-Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. He was entranced by the scale's "quintessence of... verbal economy, the ultimate expression of concise, clear, and absolutely powerful writing, 110 words in six-point type" that describe the varieties of wind from "calm" to "hurricane." Huler soon turned to a successful career as a writer and NPR contributor, but the Beaufort scale stuck with him, and he decided to learn more about the man whose definition of a "strong breeze" reads: "large branches in motion; telegraph wires whistle; umbrellas used with difficulty." Huler's admittedly obsessive narrative ranges from the late–18th-century ships of the British West Indies Company to a wind tunnel at the University of Michigan, leading "through sailing and engineering and science and technology." But at its heart is a fascination with the language we use to describe the world around us. Less a piece of science writing than a writer's meditation on science, this gem of a book is equal parts history, mystery, textbook and memoir, as much a story about how we think about the wind as it is about the wind itself, and deserves a wide audience among readers interested in writing, nature and history. 30 illus.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From The New Yorker
"Small trees in leaf begin to sway; crested wavelets form on inland waters." So runs the Beaufort scale's definition of a "fresh breeze," or one that blows between nineteen and twenty-four m.p.h. Huler's chance encounter with this guide for assessing wind force at sea sparks an infatuation with its spare, cadenced lines and a desire to learn about their origins. The eponymous Sir Francis Beaufort didn't actually write the famous descriptions but still acts as the book's presiding spirit, as Huler traces the rise of scientific classification at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Huler writes with self-deprecating wit, and although some of his scientific discussions are excessively rudimentary ("The Earth is a sphere"), he captures the Beaufort scale's "open-hearted intellectual decency."
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
See all Editorial Reviews
While working as a copy editor two decades ago, Huler chanced across the Beaufort scale in Merriam-Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. He was entranced by the scale's "quintessence of... verbal economy, the ultimate expression of concise, clear, and absolutely powerful writing, 110 words in six-point type" that describe the varieties of wind from "calm" to "hurricane." Huler soon turned to a successful career as a writer and NPR contributor, but the Beaufort scale stuck with him, and he decided to learn more about the man whose definition of a "strong breeze" reads: "large branches in motion; telegraph wires whistle; umbrellas used with difficulty." Huler's admittedly obsessive narrative ranges from the late–18th-century ships of the British West Indies Company to a wind tunnel at the University of Michigan, leading "through sailing and engineering and science and technology." But at its heart is a fascination with the language we use to describe the world around us. Less a piece of science writing than a writer's meditation on science, this gem of a book is equal parts history, mystery, textbook and memoir, as much a story about how we think about the wind as it is about the wind itself, and deserves a wide audience among readers interested in writing, nature and history. 30 illus.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From The New Yorker
"Small trees in leaf begin to sway; crested wavelets form on inland waters." So runs the Beaufort scale's definition of a "fresh breeze," or one that blows between nineteen and twenty-four m.p.h. Huler's chance encounter with this guide for assessing wind force at sea sparks an infatuation with its spare, cadenced lines and a desire to learn about their origins. The eponymous Sir Francis Beaufort didn't actually write the famous descriptions but still acts as the book's presiding spirit, as Huler traces the rise of scientific classification at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Huler writes with self-deprecating wit, and although some of his scientific discussions are excessively rudimentary ("The Earth is a sphere"), he captures the Beaufort scale's "open-hearted intellectual decency."
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
See all Editorial Reviews
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