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# 2016-11-22 - The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson | |
Rainbow in Yachats | |
Non-fiction book review written May 14, 2011 | |
To me the writing seemed similar to John Muir's writing. The preface | |
said that the author took the back seat, letting the subject take the | |
center of attention. That may be so, but the author's enthusiasm | |
shows. I think she viewed the mysterious as an opportunity, rather | |
than as a limitation. | |
The topic is literally large, so the book may as well be about the | |
history of the universe. It does touch on geology and the formation | |
of our planet and solar system. Early in the book, she wrote that | |
the earth was formed out of solar material, and it has barely cooled | |
since then. I remember the idea that the crust is a thin skin | |
floating on a molten interior, but I did not think that molten | |
interior was anywhere near star temperature. It gives me new respect | |
for the concept of geothermal energy. We still believe that the core | |
of the earth has a temperature similar to the surface of the sun. | |
Inner core @Wikipedia | |
One of my high school English teachers mentioned many phenomena that | |
are described in this book, and coincidentally gave us a reading list | |
that includes this book. I can remember my teacher describing the | |
Bay of Fundy and the forces that shape its tides. Reading the | |
example again, I wondered whether the name had to do with waveform | |
fundamentals and harmonics, but the name seems to be a coincidence. | |
The research is impressive. There were too many details to retain. | |
The most interesting detail to me is the history of our learning. | |
This book was written before geologists had consensus about plate | |
tectonics. I also thought it was neat that someone wrote about | |
"climate change" as far back as 1912. | |
"From this germ of an idea, Pettersson's fertile mind evolved a | |
theory of climatic variation, which he set forth in 1912 in an | |
extraordinarily interesting document called "Climatic Variations in | |
Historic and Prehistoric Time." (Svenska Hydrog.==Biol. Komm. | |
Skrifter, No. 5, 1912.) "Marshalling scientific, historic, and | |
literary evidence, he showed that there are alternating periods of | |
mild and severe climates which correspond to the long-period cycles | |
of the oceanic tides." | |
The afterword mentions Milankovitch, who also broke ground on this | |
subject. | |
Milankovitch cycles @Wikipedia | |
author: Carson, Rachel, 1907-1964 | |
detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Rachel_Carson | |
LOC: GC21 .C32 | |
tags: book,non-fiction,outdoor,science | |
title: The Sea Around Us | |
# Tags | |
book | |
non-fiction | |
outdoor | |
science |