| ||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
The Northern Lights is Lucy Jago's compassionate account of the lonely and ultimately tragic life of Kristian Birkeland, the pioneer of our understanding of the Aurora Borealis. The cost of scientific advancement should not be measured in purely financial terms--illumination did not come cheaply to Birkeland, who experienced poor health, heavy solitary drinking, a failed marriage, resentment from colleagues and lack of international respect. In fact, it took until nearly 50 years after his death in 1917 for his theories to be substantiated, a delay which slowed the advance of geomagnetic and auroral physics. As well a scientific biography, The Northern Lights is also the story of a small nation trying to come out from the shadow of larger ones, to be accorded respect scientifically and to gain political independence.
Birkeland led expeditions to the freezing wastes of northern Norway to prove that the phenomenon Aristotle had called "jumping goats" and Galileo had termed boreale aurora, was caused by a flow of electric particles from the sun. He also went to Africa to study the Zodiacal Light, which he believed to be similarly derived but by then his mental and physical health were deteriorating fast, paranoia convincing him that the British, whose scientific fraternity had so stubbornly disdained his work, were spying on him. Unintentionally eccentric, as a university professor he wore a red fez and red leather Egyptian slippers and his idea of courtship involved sending a female admirer a sack of potatoes or perhaps some dried flatfish. As side-projects, he was also the inventor of the world's first commercial fertiliser maker and a more sinister electro-magnetic cannon. This is splendid, alleviating stuff for a biographer and former documentary producer Lucy Jago breathes commendably thawing air into a potentially icy subject. Fastidiously researched and recounted with unbounded vigour, the obvious comparison is with Dava Sobel's Longitude but perhaps the more pertinent one is with Richard Panek's history of the telescope, Seeing and Believing, for its concise science and accessible narrative. Either way, Jago's assured debut does great credit to an obsessive inquirer who sacrificed his life, too literally, for celestial enlightenment. --David Vincent
Product Description
In this non-fiction debut, Lucy Jago tells the fascinating and moving story of visionary scientist, Kristian Birkeland, the man whose quest to solve the mystery of the Northern Lights cost him his sanity, and ultimately his life. Discovered dead in a Japanese hotel room in June 1917, in suspicious circumstances, the tragedy and mystery of Birkeland's life is a hitherto untold drama, set against some of the most dramatic landscapes on Earth, from the ice mountains of Northern Norway to the deserts of Africa, at a time of political upheaval and war. Misunderstood in his lifetime, Birkeland's ideas about our universe are now considered brilliantly prophetic. The story of how he arrived at them, sacrificing love and happiness in the pursuit of knowledge, is as stirring as any in modern science.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
IT WAS TEN in the morning and -25 Celsius when the group left the small mining town of Kaafjord for the summit of Haldde Mountain, Haldde being a Lappish word for "guardian spirit." Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
IT WAS TEN in the morning and -25 Celsius when the group left the small mining town of Kaafjord for the summit of Haldde Mountain, Haldde being a Lappish word for "guardian spirit." Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Having no formal scientific education I often find myself giving up on books that, by necessity, touch on complex scientific issues, after plodding through the first fifty-or-so pages. Not so this one. No, the science is presented in such a way as to be accessible to all with the added bonus that it is as compelling a story of obsessive compulsive behaviour as I've yet read. It is also historically informative (despite the fact that I lived with a Norwegian for 14 years this book gave me also gave me a clear insight in to the history of Norwegians at the turn of the last century too). A good, compelling, easy to follow, read. I'm already looking forward to the next one.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
From the moment I started this book I couldn't put it down, ignoring children and husband - as is my wont with a good book - for nearly 24 hours. It tells the story of a little known brilliant norwegian physicist and his determination to find the scientific explanation for the Northern Lights. There is quite a lot of science in the book, electromagnetism, chemististry, astronomy, but woven into a story of such excitement that it is a pleasure to gain some insight into complex experiments and explanations. The balance of science and drama seemed to me to reflect Birkeland himself, driven through extraordinary experiences and hardship by his unremitting determination to solve the scientific questions his brilliant mind created. His quest takes him, and through the writing immerses the reader, in the bitter storms of frozen isolated mountains with resulting tragedies, to the invention of a gun driven by electromagnetic power and the production of fertilizer from air. Finally to Egypt, to study the Zodiacal Light, where alone and ill he died. By then I was consumed with the injustice of the unrecognised genius, and one has a sense of this book putting right wrongs long overdue. It was a gripping story, with many successes along the way to the inevitable tragic end - the true events far stranger than fiction. I learnt much history as well as science and felt humbled by the descriptions of the explorers and scientist of a century ago who risked health, happiness and underwent intense hardship and dangers in the belief of what they sought. It was a very moving and beautifully written and researched book, and leaves me, above all else with a wish to see for myself the breathtaking beauty of the lights that so fascinated this man.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Hard to believe this is the first book by Lucy Jago. She appears to write with such ease and lucidity. She brilliantly selected a story so few of us had heard of, and yet so many of us should know about. She researched it thoroughly, visiting many of the places concerned and reviewing primary sources, and finally she set it out in perfect style.
The story of Kristian Birkeland, outstanding Norweigian physicist and his myriad adventures in climes from the arctic to the equator as he sought to unravel the mystery of the aurora borealis. On his intellectual odyssey he encounters unscrupulous investors, bickering engineers and even enters the world of soldiers and armaments.
Jago successfuly develops Birkeland not as a historical figure and subject of narrative, but as someone you almost feel you know or, more tragically, wish you had known. She succeeds where few authors do: in generating genuine empathy between reader and subject. Kristian Birkeland deserved this book to be written; Lucy Jago deserves it to succeed.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
A compelling read based on thoroughly researched material
This is a brilliantly written book that describes in detail the work undertaken by the Norwegian scientist, Kristian Birkeland, to establish the cause and nature of the Northern... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Adrian Brown
The Northern Lights
Lucy Jago's account of the hitherto mysterious and belittled achievements of the eccentric scientist Norwegian Kristian Birkeland is one of collective joy and despair. Read more
Published on 4 Jan 2005 by Ben Phillips
A Great Debut
The Northern Lights is an excellent biography of Kristian Birkeland, a great physicist and inventor who was the first person to understand the true nature of the Aurora Borealis. Read more
Published on 13 May 2004 by R. P. Sedgwick
Fascinating, insightful, and inspiring
Having no formal scientific education I often find myself giving up on books that, by necessity, touch on complex scientific issues, after plodding through the first fifty-or-so... Read more
Published on 7 Aug 2001 by T. CORBALLIS
Better than Longitude
BEFORE: A book by a first-time writer, on a subject which I considered dull, about a person I'd never heard of, set in countries I've never been interested in visiting. Read more
Published on 11 May 2001
Informative and inspiring
In this informative and inspiring book the author tells the fascinating story of Birkeland and his quest to unlock the secrets of space. Read more
Published on 6 May 2001 by Book addict
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Biography > Political
- Books > History > Other Historical Subjects > History of Science
- Books > Science & Nature > Astronomy & Cosmology > Astronomy > Popular Astronomy
- Books > Science & Nature > Earth Sciences & Geography > Meteorology > Hurricanes, Cyclones & Tornados
- Books > Science & Nature > Engineering & Technology > Electrical > Electromagnetic Theory
- Books > Science & Nature > Physics > Electromagnetism
- Books > Science & Nature > Popular Science > Weather
- Books > Scientific, Technical & Medical
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
