Meteorology

Meteorology is a quest of discovery, the challenge of boldly exploring where no one has gone before. That is the appeal and rhetorically durable theme which has made this woodcut so appealing.

In Works and Days, the poet Hesiod, a roughly contemporary of Homer, compiled guidelines for conducting life and forecasting the weather according to the stars.

To provide entertainment at a dinner held by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Galileo debated the Aristotelian physicist Lodovico delle Columbe on the topic of floating bodies. Galileo employed Archimedes’ mathematical analysis.

In a discussion of optical effects of the atmosphere, Aristotle here addresses the formation of a halo around the Moon. This is one of the most interesting uses of mathematics in all of Aristotle’s writings.

Pannochieschi, head of the University of Pisa, defended Columbe, widening the debate over floating bodies and exemplifying the Aristotelian physicists’ reaction to Galileo’s use of Archimedean methods. In response, Galileo published a 2d ed.

Some of Galileo’s most avid opponents were Aristotelian physicists who, lacking training in mathematics, were unable to refute Galileo’s arguments.

Accepting Agassiz’ theory of the Ice Age, Adhémar proposed that an astronomical cycle – the precession of the equinoxes – affects the melting of polar ice caps and thereby may lead to a catastrophic rise in sea level around the globe.

Kepler’s contributions reached far beyond the realm of astronomy, to meteorology, mathematics, geology, mineralogy and crystallography. Kepler published this 24-page pamphlet, a study of the snowflake, as a New Year’s greeting for a friend.

The Academy of the Lynx (Accademia dei Lincei) dissolved after the death of its founder, Prince Federigo Cesi. In its place, Grand Duke Ferdinand II established the Academy of Experiment in Florence, which carried further the research program of Galileo.

The Academy transformed the thermoscope into the thermometer by adding a graduated scale (which had been done by Galileo and his friends) and by sealing the tube to make it independent of air pressure.

The Academy crafted a hygrometer to measure humidity in the air. They improved the barometer, and conducted many experiments with air pressure. The Academy also experimented with light and phosphorescence, radiant heat, the velocity of sound and many other topics.

Della Porta dedicated several books to Cesi. Cesi underwrote publication of this book on meteorology, which includes wide-ranging discussions of water, earthquakes and meteorites. The title page displays Cesi’s coat of arms.

Schott was among the first to report the “Miracle of Magdeburg,” the sensational story of Otto von Guericke’s public demonstration of the reality of the vacuum. Von Guericke bolted two large hemispheres together, then evacuated the air inside them with his air pump.

This is the first book written in English devoted to tornados. Finley served in the US Army Signal Service, which was tasked with weather forecasting in 1870. Finley’s study of tornados led him to issue unofficial tornado forecasts.

In this work, von Guericke explained the design of his air pump and recounted additional experiments conducted with it. He employed the barometer to forecast the weather, and invented an electrostatic generator.

Boyle, who heard of von Guericke’s experiments via Schott, retained Robert Hooke to construct a similar air pump for him. Boyle’s experiments supported his “corpuscular” view of matter, that air is comprised of particles in motion.

Newton’s contemporaries may have first heard of him through articles in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. There he reported his experiments with prisms on the nature of light and color in the atmosphere.

Dalton defined the law of partial pressures in the course of his meteorological research. Three years later, his New System of Chemical Philosophy (Manchester, 1808) presented his atomic theory and provided a way to calculate the relative weights of elements and compounds.