Bones, Rocks and Stars: The Science of When Things Happened
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'A fabulous, entertainingly written account of the amazing science
behind calendars, dates and dating objects. Essential reading for anyone
interested in prehistory.' - Professor Tim Flannery, Director of the South Australian Museum
'A rollicking run through the story of telling the time - lively and well-researched, with many fascinating stories.' - Professor Michael Benton, author of When Life Nearly Died
'This delightful introduction successfully fuses history, prehistory and earth science. It captures the imagination from its first page, and then takes the reader on a fun and fact-filled world tour through the past.' - Professor Tim White, University of California at Berkeley, USA
'What I like best about the book: It's a scientist clearly explaining what he does for a living and why it is important, at a level that any literate person can understand. Not an easy accomplishment.' - scienceblogs.com/pharyngula
'Absorbing - will appeal to a wide audience, particularly those who got a kick out of Blink or Freakonomics.' - Publishers Weekly
'If you like detective stories, you'll love this book. With a passion that radiates from every page, geologist Chris Turney, who did the radiocarbon dating on the 'hobbit' human fossil recently discovered in Indonesia, reveals how scientific dating techniques have helped solve the biggest mysteries of all time. What really happened to the dinosaurs? How old is the universe? Why did giant kangaroos die out? When did early Homo sapiens sweep aside the Neanderthals in the Middle East? What caused the ice ages? Turney explains how trees, amino acids, carbon, luminescence, volcanic ash, stars and even pollen can all give objects or events an exact place in history. The book is easy to understand and it should satisfy the hungriest of infovores.' - New Scientist
'5/5: a book that tackles [these] issues is welcome indeed - that it succeeds so brilliantly is a wonderful surprise.' - Peter Andrews of the Natural History Museum, BBC Focus Magazine
'Well researched and covers a lot of ground in a splendidly personal style. Highly recommended' - Quaternary Australasia
'A fascinating guide to the measurement of time' - Chemistry World
'The value of Chris Turney's Bones, Rocks and Stars: The Science of When Things Happened is that it provides a concise, simple, readable introduction to the full range of dating techniques...Altogether a very useful little book.' - Current World Archaeology
Professor Michael Benton, author of 'When Life Nearly Died'
"A rollicking run through the story of telling the time - lively and well-researched, with many fascinating stories."
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a lovely little book, but the emphasis ought to be on the "little." Chris Turney was a member of the team that dated the tiny fossil creatre from Indonesia (the "hobbit") that might be our nearest relative, and he is very good at telling a lively tale about all aspects of dating the past, from the mystery of leap years to the age of the Earth and carbon-14 dating of things that used to be alive. But even with the Amazon discount, this is a lot of money to pay for a very small book. I'd suggest waiting for the paperback.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
"Bones, Rocks and Stars" is an engaging and wide-ranging romp through "the science of when things happened." Each chapter covers a single topic, such as how the calendar evolved, when King Arthur would have lived (if he existed), when the Santorini volcano erupted in the Mediterranean, when the Shroud of Turin was forged (pulling no punches there), when (and why) the earth experiences ice ages, and when (exactly) the dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid impact. Turney's style is approachable, so even carbon 14 dating, the precession of the equinoxes, Milankovitch cycles and other challenging topics are clearly explained.
If you enjoy enlightening and surprising books like Malcolm Gladwell's "Tipping Point" and "Blink," Cordelia Fines' "A Mind of Its Own" and Michael Leavitt's "Freakonomics," you may find this little book to be an eye opening and entertaining look at how scientists have figured out when things happened.
If you enjoy enlightening and surprising books like Malcolm Gladwell's "Tipping Point" and "Blink," Cordelia Fines' "A Mind of Its Own" and Michael Leavitt's "Freakonomics," you may find this little book to be an eye opening and entertaining look at how scientists have figured out when things happened.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In this series of evocative essays, Turney explains how our continually changing concept and use of time affects how we view the world and ourselves. Using a sprightly prose style, he opens with a description of various calendar systems developed by the ancients. It was difficult for them to reconcile the irregularities of lunar month, solar year and constantly changing heavens. Egypt, Babylon and Rome all struggled to maintain some control over the calendar. Many forms of adjustment were implemented but precision was difficult, if not impossible. The device of the "Leap Year" to adjust for the lack of precision was the best humans could do until the invention of the atomic clock.
The atom, with many versions and intricacies, has proven an effective tool in time-keeping. From measuring split seconds to granting us some insight on circumstances billions of years ago, "atomic clocks" in their various forms have provided many solutions to long unresolved problems. Turney's chapter on the Shroud of Turin is but one example of a practical application. Its status as a forgery went undetected for centuries until radiometric measurements revealed its true age.
A grander sweep of time, yet one with significant implications for today's world are the chapters on the eruption of Santorini in the Mediterranean and what led to the Ice Ages. Thera has been described as the cause of the elimination of the Minoan Empire. Based on Crete four thousand years ago, the Minoans operated an intricate network of trade routes in the region and were a highly sophisticated and successful people. Yet, they disappeared almost instantly around thirty-five hundred years ago. The author examines the evidence that Santorini might have been responsible. Further back in time, he reviews another threat to society in the form of invasive glaciers. Atoms play a role even in ice as accumulations of oxygen isotopes tell the story of climate change events. Even though some of those shifts rely on Earth's orbit and tilt relative to the sun, their signature rests with those oxygen atoms.
Human societies have their own fluctuations, as Turney notes in other chapters. The dating of hominid fossils has contributed a great deal in deriving both the time and place of our origins. Rocks surrounding bones tell us when the fossils lived, and tiny grains of pollen indicate the type of environment they lived in. One of the enigmas of science is why there is but one species of upright-walking ape remaining - us. There have been competitors for living space, most notably the Neanderthals. But at least one other species co-habited the planet with us. The "Hobbit" fossil found on an Indonesian island resided there only 18 thousand years ago, as Turney's own dating research revealed. The possibility that there may be remnant populations yet to be found raises compelling questions.
Turney's book may seem light-hearted at first glance, but it rests on serious work by dedicated workers. Dating the rocks was a difficult science in the 18th and 19th Centuries, but technology has provided astonishing new insights on our world. There's much to be learned and the author's effective presentation makes this book a stimulating introduction to this field. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
The atom, with many versions and intricacies, has proven an effective tool in time-keeping. From measuring split seconds to granting us some insight on circumstances billions of years ago, "atomic clocks" in their various forms have provided many solutions to long unresolved problems. Turney's chapter on the Shroud of Turin is but one example of a practical application. Its status as a forgery went undetected for centuries until radiometric measurements revealed its true age.
A grander sweep of time, yet one with significant implications for today's world are the chapters on the eruption of Santorini in the Mediterranean and what led to the Ice Ages. Thera has been described as the cause of the elimination of the Minoan Empire. Based on Crete four thousand years ago, the Minoans operated an intricate network of trade routes in the region and were a highly sophisticated and successful people. Yet, they disappeared almost instantly around thirty-five hundred years ago. The author examines the evidence that Santorini might have been responsible. Further back in time, he reviews another threat to society in the form of invasive glaciers. Atoms play a role even in ice as accumulations of oxygen isotopes tell the story of climate change events. Even though some of those shifts rely on Earth's orbit and tilt relative to the sun, their signature rests with those oxygen atoms.
Human societies have their own fluctuations, as Turney notes in other chapters. The dating of hominid fossils has contributed a great deal in deriving both the time and place of our origins. Rocks surrounding bones tell us when the fossils lived, and tiny grains of pollen indicate the type of environment they lived in. One of the enigmas of science is why there is but one species of upright-walking ape remaining - us. There have been competitors for living space, most notably the Neanderthals. But at least one other species co-habited the planet with us. The "Hobbit" fossil found on an Indonesian island resided there only 18 thousand years ago, as Turney's own dating research revealed. The possibility that there may be remnant populations yet to be found raises compelling questions.
Turney's book may seem light-hearted at first glance, but it rests on serious work by dedicated workers. Dating the rocks was a difficult science in the 18th and 19th Centuries, but technology has provided astonishing new insights on our world. There's much to be learned and the author's effective presentation makes this book a stimulating introduction to this field. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
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