The Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies

by Richard Hamblyn

Book Overview

Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize 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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312420013
• ISBN13: 9780312420017
• Release Date: August 2002
• Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.6" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

The Man Who Named the Clouds

"The Invention of Clouds" is an endearing little book about a generally forgotten moment in the history of science. It seems obvious to us today but until Englishman Luke Howard, a chemist with an interest in the then-young science of meteorology, gave a public lecture on cloud classification in London in 1802, nobody had been able to categorize cloud formations in an easily-understood and consistent manner. The terms we take for granted-cumulus, cirrus, stratus and so forth-were applied by the 30 year-old Howard for the first time. He drew upon his classical education to find suitable Latin names for what he termed "the modifications of clouds." He understood that clouds pass through stages and in his lecture he described the changes they underwent. His audience understood immediately the importance of his lecture and it was published soon afterwards to great acclaim.Luke Howard became famous throughout the world. It is clear that he must have viewed this with mixed feelings. As a modest Quaker, he did not seek celebrity but as a scientist he was undoubtedly proud of his accomplishment. It is a beautiful achievement. By naming that which was ever-present but unnamed, Luke Howard helped forge the language of meteorology and provided some of the most important tools for weather observation and forecasting. His Latin names speak to the universality of climate and his detractors, who felt that the classifications should have been in English, were soon silenced. The book describes the reaction of artists as well. On the one hand, there were those who believed that clouds, as objects of great natural beauty and a symbol of freedom, would lose something by being systematically classified, as if they were species of beetles, but others, including the painter Constable, used the classification of the clouds as a basis for their art. The great genius of the period, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, completely enchanted by Luke Howard's work and personality, dedicated a series of marvellous poems to him, with each stanza based on one of the new cloud-forms.But even having poetry dedicated to you by Goethe is not enough to claim enduring fame. Luke Howard seems to have lived a quiet existence, marked by some success in business and a happy family life. He died at the age of 91, remembered fondly by only his relatives. Richard Hamblyn, in writing this book, must have struggled to develop enough material as it appears that the lecture of 1802 was the high point of Luke Howard's scientific life and his attention was then taken up more by commerce and religious issues. Mr. Hamblyn gives us a history of the earlier attempts to define clouds, reaching back to Aristotle. He throws in the story of the Beaufort Wind Scale, which was inspired by but not as readily-accepted as Luke Howard's cloud system. He deals with the subsequent amendments to the cloud classifications and we learn of the International Meterological Conference and its winsomely-named Cloud Committee, whi

LA Times Book Prize Winner

I went to to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books last month, and among the many great authors I heard speaking, Richard Hamblyn stood out among the best. He spoke about clouds, mathematics, literature, art, religion, balloons.... I was not surprised when The Invention of Clouds won the coveted LA Times Book Prize. It's so full of wonderful things. This is a must read book.

Invention of Clouds

This book is a fascinating look at the origin of the most basic element in meteorology, the names of clouds. A fascinating insight into Science and the role of the Amateur in the early 19th century.

A Charming Book about a Man Everyone Should Know

Richard Hamblyn does an immaculate job of painting the picture of the world of almost two hundred years ago, opening with the presentation room as it must have appeared to Luke Howard, the inventor of our current system of naming clouds. He takes what has since come to be a dull and pedantic topic and re-invigorates it with the Victorian Zeitgeist, including quotes from Goethe, passages from Howard's diary, and the unfortunate results of political infighting among society-academics unrivalled since the age of Newton and Voltaire. The book is also beautifully presented in a half-height format suitable for either the coffee table or the reference shelf. Bravo!

A wondrous story about weather and much more

Until the early nineteenth century, there was no unified system within any scientific or meteorological community for either naming or classifying clouds. The texts produced by nearly all ancient civilizations, the Chinese Shang Dynasty, and in addition Aristotle, Plato, and much later, Descartes, Linnaeus (much too rigidly) and many others had sought to analyze and describe clouds. Hamblyn notes that clouds' observed properties had been variously cited over time in order to reinforce the status quo in politics, philosophy, and religion - or to promote ideas (offensive to Napoleon among many others) about the zodiac, divination, and prophecy. Lamarck had attempted classification of clouds. He published vivid descriptions that were, as it turned out, of no real scientific use.English amateur meteorologist Luke Howard had thought about this problem for quite some time. In 1802 he delivered his address, "On the Modification of Clouds," to a teeming lecture hall in London. His seven "modifications" of clouds were cirrus, cirrocumulus, cirrostratus, cumulus, cumulostratus, nimbus, and stratus. (If you never have been able to memorize the list, you're in good company: contemporary complaints included the gripe that, innovative or not, "the seven 'easy ' names [were] doggedly difficult to remember.") Despite the Latin, his news was received with great enthusiasm - although there would eventually be controversy regarding nomenclature, with British colleagues urging the use of the mother tongue.Howard described not only the look of clouds, but the specifics of their formation, structure and behavior. His lively audience was captivated by his simple, elegant, and wholly original view, and "by the end of the lecture Luke Howard, by giving language to nature's most ineffable and prodigal forms, had squared an ancient and anxiogenic circle." Howard had "named the clouds," and he was the first to have done so.His system was useful to scientists, sailors, poets and philosophers - and just about everyone in between. Coleridge and Wordsworth were enthusiastic. Goethe wrote to Howard. (Howard thought the letter was a hoax, and dispatched a close friend to get to the bottom of it.) Later, Goethe would write poetry on clouds, and Constable would paint themThis is an unusual and beautiful book. Hamblyn is a humanitarian and a sensitive and skillful writer. He provides a deeply intimate and sympathetic biography of Howard, a good man for whom fame and celebrity was never the point of his life's work. (He was happy to take time off from science, for example, to tend to his wife and new baby in 1803.). Correspondence and contemporary accounts have been consulted. What could have been a rather dry, even plodding story becomes completely engrossing and full.In addition, there is a thrilling and detailed portayal of the many towns and cities of nineteenth-century Britain (particularly London) that teemed with scientific lectures, "philosophical shows and diversions," cheer