Brief book reviews - An Ocean of Air

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''An Ocean of Air: Why the Wind Blows and Other Mysteries of the Atmosphere'' by Gabrielle Walker; Harcourt; 272 pages; $25.

Most of us think of the air around us as a void, an empty space between the matter that matters. That's if we think of it at all. It's rare to care about air.

Gabrielle Walker, a science writer with a Ph.D. in chemistry from Cambridge, not only cares, she breathes life into the subject. In "An Ocean of Air," she transforms what many of us perceive as invisible and insignificant into something that's not only tangible, it's downright interesting. This is no "Seinfeld"-esque book about nothing.



Her background helps her understand complex scientific experiments and principles, and her writing skill translates what could be some pretty dense stuff into comprehensible, digestible material.

For weather nuts, the early chapters on the composition of air are a slight disappointment. The subtitle, "Why the Wind Blows and Other Mysteries of the Atmosphere," makes one think there would be more meteorology and less chemistry. But the weather wonders do come, and it's not a slog getting there.

Walker is an excellent storyteller. The book reads like well-written history, with equal emphasis on personalities and the process. She has an obvious, deep appreciation for the scientific method, but she's equally fascinated with the quirks and foibles of the men who made major discoveries about everything from the weight of air to the last layers of the Earth's atmosphere - the protective Van Allen belts thousands of miles from the planet's surface.

She tells how early scientists such as Galileo, who had to build on a rather slim base of knowledge, conducted ingenious experiments. Galileo believed air was heavy, and he set out to prove it. He managed to squeeze extra air into a bottle using a bellows. He weighed the bottle before and after, and concluded that air weighs about 1/400th of the equivalent amount of water. Carnegie Hall's "empty" space would weigh about 30 tons. Yes, air is a heavy topic.

Walker's scientific heroes, who unlocked secrets about oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, global wind patterns, the ozone layer and the ionosphere, are a diverse lot. Some were reclusive eccentrics who never sought or received recognition or fortune, and others became rich and famous. Some came from humble beginnings, some from privileged backgrounds.

William Ferrell, who grew up on a farm in West Virginia in the 1830s, gets Walker's unsung hero award. Basically a self-taught mathematician, Ferrell created formulas that explain the trade winds that blew Columbus across the Atlantic in 1492 and the westerlies that pushed him back home. Walker calls him one of the best American scientists who ever lived.

Walker also explains how Thomas Midgley, another scientist and inventor that most people have never heard of, was inadvertently responsible for more damage to the Earth's atmosphere "than any other single organism that ever lived." Midgley, who worked for General Motors in 1916, solved a perplexing problem for the automotive industry. He figured out how to eliminate engine knock caused by uneven combustion. He added lead to gasoline. Now, of course, lead is banned from gasoline because of the myriad diseases it causes.

Midgley also solved one of the biggest problems in mechanical refrigeration. Early refrigerants all carried varied health risks. Some were toxic; others were highly flammable. Midgley experimented until he found what he thought would be the ideal chemical: Freon.

His discovery became an immediate hit. It was used in refrigerators throughout the land. Eventually, his "safe" chemical became widely used as an aerosol propellant. Now, of course, we know that the related CFCs, or chlorofluorocarbons, were destroying the Earth's protective ozone layer. Walker explains how scientists at University of California Irvine, figured out how and why the CFCs were posing a threat to all life on the planet.

She gets lost in a diversion or two, especially in an overly long retelling of the story of the wireless operators on the Titanic. But overall, Walker takes us on an engaging, educational, and interesting trip through the atmosphere that sustains and protects us.

- Robert Krier

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