Nature's Clocks: How Scientists Measure the Age of Almost Everything

Macdougall, Doug

ISBN 10: 0520249755 / ISBN 13: 9780520249752

Edité par University of California Press, 2008

A propos de cet article

8vo (23.5 cm), XI, 271 pp. Publisher's cloth backed boards and dust jacket. "By examining radiocarbon (C-14) dating-the best known of these methods-and several other techniques that geologists use to decode the distant past, Macdougall unwraps the last century's advances, explaining how they reveal the age of our fossil ancestors such as "Lucy," the timing of the dinosaurs' extinction, and the precise ages of tiny mineral grains that date from the beginning of the earth's history. In lively and accessible prose, he describes how the science of geochronology has developed and flourished." (from the publisher's description).

N° de réf. du vendeur 007333

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Nature's Clocks: How Scientists Measure the Age of Almost Everything
• Éditeur: University of California Press
• Date de parution: 2008
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 0520249755
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780520249752
• Reliure: Hardcover
• État de l'article: New
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Geology

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

"Radioactivity is like a clock that never needs adjusting," writes Doug Macdougall. "It would be hard to design a more reliable timekeeper." In Nature's Clocks, Macdougall tells how scientists who were seeking to understand the past arrived at the ingenious techniques they now use to determine the age of objects and organisms. By examining radiocarbon (C-14) dating--the best known of these methods--and several other techniques that geologists use to decode the distant past, Macdougall unwraps the last century's advances, explaining how they reveal the age of our fossil ancestors such as "Lucy," the timing of the dinosaurs' extinction, and the precise ages of tiny mineral grains that date from the beginning of the earth's history. In lively and accessible prose, he describes how the science of geochronology has developed and flourished. Relating these advances through the stories of the scientists themselves--James Hutton, William Smith, Arthur Holmes, Ernest Rutherford, Willard Libby, and Clair Patterson--Macdougall shows how they used ingenuity and inspiration to construct one of modern science's most significant accomplishments: a timescale for the earth's evolution and human prehistory.

À propos de l?auteur

Doug Macdougall is Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, and currently resides in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is the author of Frozen Earth: The Once and Future Story of Ice Ages (UC Press, 2004) and A Short History of Planet Earth.