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acknowledgments
I owe thanks to the many scientists who helped me with this book. You took me from the birth of the universe to the inner turmoil of our own planet and then back out into space
. It’s been a splendid journey. I stand in awe of the passion each of you brings to the task. And the imagination.
Above all, I want to thank Sabine Stanley of Johns Hopkins University. You were the first person I interviewed for The Spinning Magnet (thanks to Harvard’s Jerry Mitrovica for the intro), back when it was just a glimmer of an idea. You have been there ever since, with wisdom, patience, and good humor.
The indomitable Jacques Kornprobst, honorary director of l’Observatoire de Physique du Globe de Clermont-Ferrand, not only explained things to me but also drove me around France, introducing me to Bernard Brunhes as well as to the Romanesque wonders of Orcival and Saint-Nectaire. Merci mille fois. And the same to Jean-François Lénat of l’Université Blaise Pascal, who encouraged me in the democratization of science this book aspires to.
Andrew D. Jackson of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen first guided me through the life of Hans Christian Ørsted and then into the inner workings of atoms and fields. Thank you for helping me understand all that I still needed to learn and for all the work you did on early drafts of the first half of the book.
Conall Mac Niocaill of the University of Oxford spent much of a March afternoon explaining basic concepts of magnetism to me and showing me his experiments. Frank James of the Royal Institute in London carved time out of a busy day to chat about all things Faraday, including taking me into the archives. Michael Winklhofer spent a full day with me at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany to explain how creatures perceive the magnetic field and even bought me lunch and drove me to the train station so I could catch my flight back to London. The enthusiasm of Daniel Lathrop of the University of Maryland, College Park, stays with me still.
Chris Finlay of the Technical University of Denmark has been unfailingly helpful. Thank you so much. And thanks for telling me about the SEDI conference in Nantes, where I had the great good luck to run into Chris Jones, Richard Holme, Cathy Constable, Kathy Whaler, Peter Olson, Christine Thomas, Collin Phillips, Philippe Cardin, Bill McDonough, Hagay Amit, Benoit Langlais, Gauthier Hulot, and others who have influenced this book.
This book would have remained unwritten but for the kindness of Daniel Baker of LASP in Colorado, who both spoke with me at length and met with me to explain his work.
The work of A.R.T. Jonkers and of Gillian Turner has infused the book’s research and writing. The magnificent, if now dog-eared, Encyclopedia of Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism, edited by David Gubbins and Emilio Herrero-Bervera, has been my constant companion.
And finally, the theoretical physicist Sean Carroll of Caltech came into my life by chance at the perfect moment to answer burning questions about the four forces of the universe, quantum field theory, and electrons. Thank you for your generosity.
Despite all this help, my mistakes are my own.
I began to imagine this book because of the inquisitiveness, energy, and outright generosity of my agents, Sally Harding and Ron Eckel of the Cooke Agency. Immense thanks to you both.
I have often thought of my editor, Stephen Morrow at Dutton, as the dramaturge of this book, to borrow a theatrical idea. What I mean by that is you alone sensed the shape and scope of this book from the very beginning and gently dropped the exact right ideas at precisely the right times to help it come to life. Your unfailing support, even for the quirky bits, has meant the world to me. Thank you.
Nick Garrison, of Penguin Random House in Canada, took me for a memorable lunch in Toronto near the beginning of the writing of the book and, right there, caused the introduction to be born. Always so devilish to write. Many thanks!
To Madeline Newquist of Dutton, thank you so much for your cheerful patience. To Rachelle Mandik, Dutton’s astonishing copy editor, I bow to your gifts.
Many thanks to Nicholas Michel. You are an excellent scientist and a very patient chemistry teacher to your mother.
And to my James, thank you for being my compass, now and always.
index
The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. The link provided will take you to the beginning of that print page. You may need to scroll forward from that location to find the corresponding reference on your e-reader.
acoustic experiments, 142–43
actuarial risk calculation, 257–58
acute radiation sickness, 274
ADEOS II, 241
Adler, Hanna, 170
Age of Sail, 54
agonic lines, 197–98
Albemarle Street, London, 133–34
alpha decay, 272–73
Altona, Germany, 98–99
amber, 58–59, 103, 107–8
American Geophysical Union, 13, 189
American International Group (AIG), 258
Ampère, André-Marie, 125, 129, 131, 136–37, 167
Andersen, Hans Christian, 98, 128
Anglican Church, 140
animal electricity, 145
Annalen der Physik, 149
Annals of Philosophy, 136
Antarctica, 81, 201
Apennine Mountains, 209
Apollo missions, 269, 272
apparent polar wander, 187–88
Apreece, Jane, 134
archeological evidence, 42, 217–18
Archimedes, 40
Arctic exploration, 1–3, 80–81, 99
Aristotle, 36, 37, 41, 56–58
Assam earthquake, 165
astronauts, 241–42, 269–70, 272, 274–76. See also spacecraft and space travel
Astronomer Royal, 79
astronomy, 7
astrophysics, 6
asymmetry of the Earth’s magnetic field, 205
Atlantic Ocean, 200
atmosphere, 235, 253–54
atomic bombs, 271–72, 274
atomic structure, 19–25, 37–38, 141, 253
atomism, 117, 168
attraction/repulsion, 119
auroras, 1–4, 161, 234, 242–44
aviation and air travel, 212, 239–41, 255
bacteria, magnetotactic, 263–65
Baker, Daniel N.
and Carrington-class superstorms, 242, 245–46
and cross-discipline research, 253
and effect of changing magnetic field, 236–37, 253–55, 276–77
and solar energetic particle research, 233–34
and solar storm cycles, 239
and space missions, 235–37, 269–70
and Van Allen, 232–33
Ballum, Inger Birgitte, 98
barometric pressure, 14
basalts, 189
batteries, 112, 123–26
Becquerel, Henri, 51, 271
Berra, Yogi, 276
beryllium, 218, 252
beta decay, 272
Bible, 7, 13–14, 41, 60–61, 167
Big Bang, 18, 19–20
Blackett Laboratory, 260
Bloxham, Jeremy, 198–99
Board of Longitude, 78–80, 142
Boeing, 261
Bohr, Niels, 95–96, 170–71, 173, 276
Bonhommet, Norbert, 63
Book of Genesis, 60, 167
Borough, William, 73
Boulder, Colorado, 231
Brezhnev, Leonid, 261
British Association for the Advancement of Science, 80, 82, 187
British Parliament, 78
Brunhes, Bernard
and advances in geomagnetic research, 49–52, 197, 231
and the Curie point, 159
death, 91
interest in magnetism, 47
Kornprobst’s scholarship on, 12–14, 27–32
and Oldham’s research, 166, 168
and Ørsted’s magnetic theories, 99
and Pont Farin excavations, 85–8
6, 88–91, 149–50, 157, 216
and rate of polarity reversal, 174
and religious orthodoxies, 35
and scholarly acceptance of polarity reversal, 175–79, 183, 187
and volcanology, 63–64, 67–69
Brunhes, Jean, 29–30, 68
Brunhes, Julien, 29
Bullard, Edward, 186, 191, 192
Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières, 31
Bureau des Longitudes, 80
California Institute of Technology, 18
Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies, 258
Canada, 188
cancer rates, 252, 270, 274–75, 276
capacitors, 110
carbon, 21
carbon dioxide, 68, 193, 213, 235–36, 257
Cardin, Philippe, 155–56, 163, 178
Carnegie Institute, 181
Carrington, Richard, 242
Carrington event (1859), 241–43, 243–47, 257–58
Carroll, Sean, 6, 7, 18
central nervous system, 275
CERN, 95, 99
Chaîne des Puys, 65
CHAMP satellite, 200, 207
chaos, 210–11
Chapman, Allan, 57
Charles II, King of England, 79
Charles of Anjou, 40, 42–43
chemistry
and atomic structure, 20
and author’s background, 6
and core composition, 173
and Faraday, 134–35
and Galvani, 123–24
impact of core heat, 250
and K-Ar dating, 182
and magnetoreception, 265
and mantle composition, 196
and Oldham, 168
and Ørsted, 119–21, 126–29
and radiation exposure, 252–55
and radioactive decay, 273
and volcanism, 181
Chinese culture, 38–39, 200
Chladni, Ernst, 142
classical physics, 7
climate change, 68, 213, 215
clocks, 55–56, 104, 142
closed electrical circuits, 126
cobalt, 24
coils, electric, 139, 143–44, 149