false 2177857 1 &#8220;Nature, rightly questioned, never lies.&#8221; &#8212;A Manual of Scientific Enquiry, Third Edition, 1859<br><br>Scott Huler was working as a copy editor for a small publisher when he stumbled across the Beaufort Wind Scale in his Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary. It was one of those moments of discovery that writers live for. Written centuries ago, its 110 words launched Huler on a remarkable journey over land and sea into a fascinating world of explorers, mariners, scientists, and writers. After falling in love with what he decided was &#8220;the best, clearest, and most vigorous piece of descriptive writing I had ever seen,&#8221; Huler went in search of Admiral Francis Beaufort himself: hydrographer <br>to the British Admiralty, man of science, and author&#8212;Huler assumed&#8212;of the Beaufort Wind Scale. But what Huler discovered is that the scale that carries Beaufort&#8217;s name has a long and complex evolution, and to properly understand it he had to keep reaching farther back in history, into the lives and works of figures from Daniel Defoe and Charles Darwin to Captains Bligh, of the Bounty, and Cook, of the Endeavor. <br><br>As hydrographer to the British Admiralty it was Beaufort&#8217;s job to track the information that ships relied on: where to lay anchor, descriptions of ports, information about fortification, religion, and trade. But what came to fascinate Huler most about Beaufort was his obsession for observing things and communicating to others what the world looked like.<br><br>Huler&#8217;s research landed him in one of the most fascinating and rich periods of history, because all around the world in the mid-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in a grand, expansive period, modern science was being invented every day. These scientific advancements encompassed not only vast leaps in understanding but also how scientific innovation was expressed and even organized, including such enduring developments as the scale Anders Celsius created to simplify how Gabriel Fahrenheit measured temperature; the French-designed metric system; and the Gregorian calendar adopted by France and Great Britain. To Huler, Beaufort came to embody that passion for scientific observation and categorization; indeed Beaufort became the great scientific networker of his time. It was he, for example, who was tapped to lead the search for a naturalist in the 1830s to accompany the crew of the Beagle; he recommended a young naturalist named Charles Darwin.<br><br><b>Defining the Wind</b> is a wonderfully readable, often humorous, and always rich story that is ultimately about how we observe the forces of nature and the world around us. 2183535 10 8 2004 Defining the Wind: The Beaufort Scale, and How a 19th-Century Admiral Turned Science into Poetry total:19|5:2|4:11|3:6| 19 72 37 5 4 0 false false Thu Jul 09 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Jun 21 08:31:04 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 13 09:33:45 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Aug 09 07:18:49 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 09 07:29:45 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed May 07 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed May 07 09:30:13 -0700 2008 Wed May 07 09:31:39 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Tue Mar 11 21:18:40 -0700 2008 Tue Mar 11 21:20:28 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Thu Jul 15 00:00:00 -0700 2004 Wed Nov 19 09:04:38 -0800 2008 Wed Nov 19 09:10:45 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Sun Jul 19 11:38:47 -0700 2009 Sun Jul 19 11:38:47 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Sat Mar 14 00:01:55 -0700 2009 Sat Mar 14 00:01:55 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Fri Mar 13 16:46:49 -0700 2009 Fri Mar 13 16:46:49 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Jan 25 16:02:42 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 25 16:02:55 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Sat Jan 10 15:24:46 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 10 15:24:49 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Sun Dec 14 13:59:17 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 14 13:59:35 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Sun Dec 07 21:00:46 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 07 21:00:46 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Wed Jan 07 11:37:56 -0800 2009 Tue Dec 02 08:53:55 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 07 11:37:56 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Sat Nov 29 14:49:20 -0800 2008 Sat Nov 29 14:49:20 -0800 2008 3 0 false false Wed Nov 26 12:01:28 -0800 2008 Wed Nov 26 12:01:28 -0800 2008 4 0 false false Tue Oct 28 19:19:35 -0700 2008 Tue Oct 28 19:19:35 -0700 2008 3 0 false false Tue Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Mon Sep 15 13:09:43 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 15 13:09:43 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Tue Aug 26 11:32:04 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 26 11:32:04 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Sun Jun 29 06:48:10 -0700 2008 Sun Jun 29 06:48:10 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Thu May 15 14:31:41 -0700 2008 Thu May 15 14:31:48 -0700 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=2177857