How Did We Find Out About the Atmosphere?

How Did We Find Out #28

by Isaac Asimov, David Wool (Illustrator)

Recounts the lengthy history of mankind's ongoing inquiry into the nature and composition of earth's atmosphere

64 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Works of prolific Russian-American writer Isaac Asimov include popular explanations of scientific principles, The Foundation Trilogy (1951-1953), and other volumes of fiction.

Isaac Asimov, a professor of biochemistry, wrote as a highly successful author, best known for his books.

Asimov, professor, generally considered of all time, edited more than five hundred books and ninety thousand letters and postcards. He published in nine of the ten major categories of the Dewey decimal classification but lacked only an entry in the category of philosophy (100).

People widely considered Asimov, a master of the genre alongside Robert Anson Heinlein and Arthur Charles Clarke as the "big three" during his lifetime. He later tied Galactic Empire and the Robot into the same universe as his most famous series to create a unified "future history" for his stories much like those that Heinlein pioneered and Cordwainer Smith and Poul Anderson previously produced. He penned "Nightfall," voted in 1964 as the best short story of all time; many persons still honor this title. He also produced well mysteries, fantasy, and a great quantity of nonfiction. Asimov used Paul French, the pen name, for the Lucky Starr, series of juvenile novels.

Most books of Asimov in a historical way go as far back to a time with possible question or concept at its simplest stage. He often provides and mentions well nationalities, birth, and death dates for persons and etymologies and pronunciation guides for technical terms. Guide to Science, the tripartite set Understanding Physics, and Chronology of Science and Discovery exemplify these books.

Asimov, a long-time member, reluctantly served as vice president of Mensa international and described some members of that organization as "brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs." He took more pleasure as president of the humanist association. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, the magazine Asimov's Science Fiction, an elementary school in Brooklyn in New York, and two different awards honor his name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_As...

Reviews

[Joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This title explains how we discovered that air is real, and that it is composed of several gases. I didn’t follow some of the experiments Asimov described but I understood the basic ideas. Lots of this covered scientific history I was unaware of, such as the huge impact balloons had on scientific discoveries of the components of air. I hadn’t known that when they discovered that air high up from the earth doesn’t have enough concentration of gasses to support life, 2 of the 3 men in that balloon died. Recommended. It has the advantage, I think, of not being out of date like some of the other titles in this series, but that could be my ignorance of this subject.

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was so good when I started reading it i just couldn't put put the book down. It has very interresting because so many people did experiments to show what they did, how it worked, what they used to make it work, and what they discovered.