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The Invention Of Clouds: How An Amateur Meteorologist Forged The Language Of The Skies
by
Richard Hamblyn (Goodreads Author)
The early years of the nineteenth century saw an intriguing yet little-known scientific advance catapult a shy young Quaker to the dizzy heights of fame. The Invention of Clouds tells the story of an amateur meteorologist Luke Howard and his work to define what had hitherto been random and unknowable structures - clouds.
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Richard Hamblyn's The Invention of Clouds is a fascinating book that looks at the history of how clouds were classified into the types by which we know them today (eg cirrus, altostratus, cumulus), It centres on Luke Howard, the meteorologist who first came up with a properly workable and universal cloud classification (there had been other attempts, but they hadn't been successful).
The book is an excellent biography of Howard, but it is also offers excellent insights into the long history of me...more
The book is an excellent biography of Howard, but it is also offers excellent insights into the long history of me...more
The Book Report: Late eighteenth century London was an amazingly fertile place, with many concurrent revolutions burgeoning, and knowledge as such becoming an object of trade, almost, it was seen as so very desirable and advantageous to possess a new piece of it. The idea of scientific study of the natural world was relatively new, but had already made very solid and quite impressive inroads into the public consciousness. No longer was a person pursuing research into the material world liable to...more
“Clouds themselves, by their very nature, are self-ruining and fragmentary. They flee in haste over visible horizons to their quickly forgotten denouements. Every cloud is a small catastrophe, a world of vapor that dies before our eyes,” writes author Richard Hamblyn.
In short, clouds are ethereal things, as the Bard might say, “too flattering-sweet to be substantial.”
Indeed. “What could there be to a cloud in the sky beyond a vague metaphorical allure?” And how could anyone organize and name s...more
In short, clouds are ethereal things, as the Bard might say, “too flattering-sweet to be substantial.”
Indeed. “What could there be to a cloud in the sky beyond a vague metaphorical allure?” And how could anyone organize and name s...more
Jul 26, 2011
Jobiska (Cindy)
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
biography-memoir
This was interesting--an insight both into meteorological history and (of interest to me) Quaker history. Excellently researched and structured...really delves into both the roots of meteorology and Howard's background and personality.
I read the hardcover edition, the one depicted here, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why someone designed a book that was over an inch thick, about 5 inches high, and 8 inches wide. It hurt my hands to hold this book while reading it! I'm jealous of tho...more
I read the hardcover edition, the one depicted here, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why someone designed a book that was over an inch thick, about 5 inches high, and 8 inches wide. It hurt my hands to hold this book while reading it! I'm jealous of tho...more
Oct 27, 2008
Morgan
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
lovers of history, lovers of God, lovers of nature
Recommended to Morgan by:
The Free Library of Philadelphia, Central Branch
This exquisite book is blowing me away. As the title implies, Hamblyn posits that our meteorological invention of weather is more like an attempt to fit physics into our human concept of language. Our ancient mythologies did this when we assigned personae to clouds, wind, sun, moon, thunder, lightning, stars, sky, planets and earth in the form of gods. Even monotheists did it, as explained by Hamblyn on page 26 when he recounts the Jews' Exodus from Egypt to Sinai and Canaan and they saw high-bu...more
Really quite an interesting read for the first 200 pages - the history of the nomenclature of clouds interspesed with fascinating facts about meteorology. It however gets a bit too much when the author claims that 19th century poetry was influenced by Luke Howard's work - Goethe was a fan, apparently...
Feb 01, 2008
Ross
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
those embarking on a voyage of scientific discovery
I thought this book was going to be extremely dull, but was delighted when I found that it wasn't. As a young scientist I found myself inspired by this story of a young scientist who created the convention of naming clouds, that we still use today. Science is done so much differently these days that it was a mere hundred years ago. Sure in our present era there is so much technology and knowledge that wasn't available then, but it feels like researchers mindsets have evolved as well. Who would d...more
Sujet intéressant et bien documenté. Parfois trop de digressions à mon goût.
If you are geeky enough to love meteorology and the history of science (which I am) then this book is up your alley. This book explores the life of Luke Howard the inventor of the cloud nomenclature used to this day and dubbed by some to be the "father of meteorology".
If this book was any drier it would be a desert. There are all sorts of editing issues as the author takes what should have been short non-essential topics and stretches them out to boring proportions. There is an interesting story well hidden in this book but the problem is it lies under massive amounts of unnecessary prose. And as a little footnote this book was designed longer than it is high so it looks out of place on a bookshelf
This book is full of fascinating information and is largely engaging. But the writing style is a bit over-workshopped, as if the editors had said, "Richard, this bit is interesting, but can we have some more here about X?" and then the author fills in with a long, detailed, interesting, but narratively distracting passage. Inexplicable that this would have won the prizes and encomiums it has. Good bedtime reading for wool-gatherers.
"Every cloud is a small catastrophe,
a world of vapor that dies before our eyes.
So how, when it is gone, and not a trace
of its provisional existence
remains, might it be registered as anything
other than a cursory sign in the sky? (124)
a world of vapor that dies before our eyes.
So how, when it is gone, and not a trace
of its provisional existence
remains, might it be registered as anything
other than a cursory sign in the sky? (124)
A good read with a few dry spots. Overall though an informative history of the classification of clouds and the establishment of meteorology as a science. Particularly interesting are the parallels between London culture of the early 19th century to the modern resurgence of popular science.
Fascinating so far.
Apr 17, 2013
Kieu
is currently reading it
Apr 25, 2013
katjann
marked it as to-read
Mar 29, 2013
Andrea
marked it as to-read
Mar 07, 2013
Bgf
marked it as to-read
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Richard Hamblyn studied at the universities of Essex and Cambridge, where he wrote a doctoral dissertation on 18th-century topographical writing. His first book, The Invention of Clouds (2001) told the story of Luke Howard, the amateur meteorologist who named the clouds in 1802; his other publications include The Cloud Book (2008) and Extraordinary Clouds (2009), both published in association with...more
More about Richard Hamblyn...
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