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Throughout the ages, the lights of the aurora borealis were believed to be messengers of gods, signs of apocalypse, or souls of the dead; even the most sophisticated scientists misapprehended their cause. Now Lucy Jago tells the story of the science--and the romance--behind the Northern Lights as she traces the grand adventure of the life of the visionary Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland.
At the age of thirty-one, Birkeland set out on a lifelong, increasingly compulsive quest to discover the origins of the aurora borealis. He traveled across some of the most forbidding landscapes on Earth, from the ice mountains of Norway to the deserts of Africa, against a backdrop of war and political upheaval. Along the way, Birkeland made some remarkable discoveries and inventions, such as the idea of hearing aids for deaf patients; of making caviar from cod roe; and of using the force of cathode rays to propel rockets. No country's armed forces ever adopted his electromagnetic cannon, but the technology has since been adapted and extended to make "railguns" (electromagnetic mass accelerators) for the American Strategic Defense Initiative--the so-called "Star Wars" Defense.
Ultimately, Kristian Birkeland's obsession with the workings of the cosmos cost him his health, his happiness, and his sanity--perhaps even his life. He spent his final days in exile in Egypt, and died in 1917 in Japan, under suspicious circumstances, his groundbreaking theories unheralded; he was cheated of the Nobel Prize by a rival. But now Birkeland?s ideas are considered to have been prophetic, and they have furthered our understanding not only of the Northern Lights but also of electromagnetism, comets, and the sun.
Exhaustively researched and thrillingly told, the previously unknown story of Kristian Birkeland is an enthralling--and enlightening--saga.
- Sales Rank: #282083 in Books
- Published on: 2001-09-25
- Released on: 2001-09-25
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 1.24" h x 6.02" w x 8.69" l,
- Binding: Hardcover
- 320 pages
From Library Journal
Ancient peoples believed the aurora borealis, or northern lights, to be messengers of the gods or the souls of the dead until Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland offered the first correct explanation that they were caused by cathode rays from the sun, accompanied by magnetic perturbations. Pursuing a lifelong quest, Birkeland studied, measured, and recorded this phenomenon in some of the bleakest locations and most difficult terrains in the world from Norway's icy mountains to Africa's deserts. Against the backdrop of these arduous conditions, Birkeland also dealt with marriage and divorce, political tumult and war, and the nefarious actions of his business partner, who took credit for Birkeland's invention of an electromagnetic furnace and later undermined his chance for a Nobel prize nomination. Birkeland's once overlooked theories are now being reassessed as prophetic and considered an essential element in understanding electromagnetism, comets, and the sun. Instead of a stiff, scholarly biography, British journalist Jago has written a poignantly human story filled with minute, extensively researched details, from a description of the wallpaper in Birkeland's observatory to his courtship and married life. In readable prose, she relates complex scientific concepts and places Birkeland's discoveries and contributions in a place of prominence. Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries.
- Gloria Maxwell, Penn Valley Community Coll., Kansas City, MO
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Scientific American
In The Northern Lights, Jago uncovers a subject that has been all but buried: the true story of Kristian Birkeland, a man more than half a century ahead of his time in his scientific pursuits. The book details the life of the Norwegian scientist as he struggles, at the turn of the 19th century, to solidify his theories about the aurora borealis, or northern lights. (This luminous phenomenon of the upper atmosphere occurs in the Northern Hemisphere; in the Southern Hemisphere it is known as the aurora australis, or southern lights.) Jago, a former producer for the BBC, deftly paints a historical background for some of the most important concepts in electromagnetic theory today, breathing life into a subject traditionally presented with a drab countenance.
Editors of Scientific American
From Booklist
If fate had been kinder to Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland, he would have been awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the forces at work in the aurora borealis, a spectacular phenomenon long associated with myth, superstition, and fear; instead, he has been all but forgotten. First-time author Jago now resurrects this intrepid, visionary, and obsessively hardworking genius in a compulsively readable tale of courage, conviction, and betrayal. She begins with the dramatic tale of Birkeland's bold and extremely dangerous 1899 expedition to the Norwegian Arctic, the first scientific observation of the northern lights. Certain that the earth's magnetic field and activity on the sun were the keys to explaining the glorious celestial displays, Birkeland turned to laboratory research, displaying talents for technical innovation every bit as remarkable as his theoretical brilliance. Sadly, Norway's struggle for independence, the onset of World War I, and the machinations of a malevolent business partner combined to deny Birkeland the recognition and support he deserved. Misunderstood and increasingly isolated, he continued his quest in Egypt and Japan until he essentially worked himself to death. Jago's lucid and captivating blend of biography, physics, and cultural history adds a vital chapter to the annals of science and finally gives Birkeland his due. Donna Seaman
Copyright � American Library Association. All rights reserved
Most helpful customer reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
A Forgotten Scientist, Realistically Remembered
By Rob Hardy
It was only in the 1960s that satellites and scientists had given a full scale explanation of why the northern lights occurred. It comes as a surprise to learn, then, that they were essentially confirming the work of a scientist of the early twentieth century, the first to study the aurora and to get the explanation right. It was a stunning scientific achievement, accomplished with the sort of icy adventure one associates with polar explorers, and he accomplished a good deal of other original work, too, but the name of Kristian Birkeland is almost unknown. It is a good thing that we now have _The Northern Lights: The True Story of the Man Who Unlocked the Secrets of the Aurora Borealis_ (Knopf) by Lucy Jago.
Jago starts with a harrowing description of Birkeland's expeditions to northern observatories to get data, told with a novelist's skill. He needed the data to confirm his intuitions that the lights were due to the magnetic activity of the sun. If this weren't enough, Birkeland then went to the lab to design a series of vacuum chambers which could reproduce in miniature the solar system and could demonstrate the aurora artificially. His work, however, was barely mentioned in England, and then unfavorably. Birkeland's ideas confounded a unanimous opinion of British scientists, and the Royal Society, that space was a vacuum and nothing more; Lord Kelvin himself had decreed that the sun could have no effect on geomagnetic activity. Jago speculates that the slowness of acceptance of Birkeland's ideas set back auroral and geomagnetic physics by fifty years. Confirming his ideas so that even the British scientific establishment would have to accept them set Birkeland to thinking of a grand plan of several observatories around the Arctic which could do such things as triangulation to get a better picture of where the lights were. Such a plan would take a great deal of money. One of the strengths of Jago's biography is that she has told a good deal about Birkeland's drive for finance. He was granted various patents, including the one for pulling nitrogen out of the air to make fertilizer, the one that made him rich.
Birkeland's dedication to his work took its toll on his health and his personal life. A late marriage was short-lived, and he descended into paranoia, probably fueled by overuse of alcohol and barbiturates to calm some sort of mania. He was successful in his financial dealings, but they brought him into conflict with the director of Norsk Hydro, who may have betrayed Birkeland out of a Nobel Prize. However, Birkeland was a likeable absentminded professor, drifting on walks between his tram stop and his office in a preoccupation of technical dreams. He was unable to keep a diary, remember appointments, or attend to accounting principles. He had the admirable trait of knowing how scientific knowledge was gained: "You learn more from your mistakes than your victories," he once said cheerfully, after being thrown through the air by an unexpected massive spark. He died in 1917, a minor scientific hero to his own Norway, but since his ideas have been confirmed by space exploration, his scientific stature has risen. A crater on the Moon is named for him, and "Birkeland Current" is now the proper name for the vertical flow of electrical particles which cause the auroras. He also finally has a fascinating and full biography to tell us about his unique genius.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
Powerful Story
By Elderbear
Words fail to describe the Aurora. Photographs cannot capture their essence. Science wrestled with an adequate explanation. At the turn of the century, Kristian Birkeland used the latest technology to observe and measure auroral phenomena. His theories so astonished the scientific community that they were rejected outright. Not until fifty years later did satellite data confirm that Birkeland had gotten it mostly right.
Kristian Birkeland was a bright and driven man, not afraid to implement his ideas, and persuasive enough to gather backing for them. He developed a number of industrial processes. Members of his team died & became disabled, battling the elements to extract knowledge.
Lucy Jago tells his story well. She puts the reader into blizzards and hardship. She amazes us with the bull-headed denial of the British scientists who refused to consider Birkeland's theories, in spite of the evidence he provided. She helps us feel the growing isolation of this driven man.
The book is based on primary historical sources, as well as secondary works. Jago opted not to clutter the text with footnotes, but provided a solid bibliography.
Jago's book reminds us of an era when science was dangerous and uncertain. Research didn't take place in multi-billion dollar government laboratories. Funding was even more uncertain then than now. Kristian Birkeland had tremendous drive, courage and charisma--and Jago makes this available to us.
At a deeper level, Birkeland's story challenges readers to examine their own lives. Birkeland's theory, one paid for in blood, was rejected by scientific peers because they could not open their minds wide enough to accept surprising information. Today we call this denial. We are left to ponder which truths we deny because they would disrupt our comfortable status quo.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
The Northern Lights by Lucy Jago
By Wilfrid Legg
I couldn't put this wonderfully readable book down. The story of how Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland a hundred years ago unlocked the riddle of the famous Northern Lights, discovered almost as a by-product the industrial process to make artificial nitrogen fertilizer, and was at the center of scientific, commercial and political intrigue, is brilliantly told by Lucy Jago. It is part the story of scientific discovery, part biography, part detective thriller. The science is explained in as simple terms as possible - without compromising the complexities involved (no footnotes, but a good bibliography for those who want to explore further).
Birkeland was a driven man. One of those ultimately tragic persons, he took incredible risks. It comes as no surprise to read that his vision and fanatical zeal for scientific discovery cost him his marriage - and his life: he was barely 50 when he apparently committed suicide, alone in Japan in 1917. And it was not until another 50 years after his death that he was vindicated.
Yet this book is also a story of an inspirational life. Reading this book, I was reminded that not only did Birkeland advance scientific understanding of the universe but, through his discovery of the processes to make artificial fertilisers, he played a key role in allowing for the expansion of global food supplies to feed the growing world population.
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