The Fluid Envelope of our Planet : : How the Study of Ocean Currents Became a Science / / Eric L. Mills.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter UTP eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2015
• VerfasserIn: Mills, Eric L.,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2017]; ©2009
• Year of Publication: 2017
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

Oceans have had a mysterious allure for centuries, inspiring fears, myths, and poetic imaginations. By the early twentieth century, however, scientists began to see oceans as physical phenomena that could be understood through mathematical geophysics. The Fluid Envelope of Our Planet explores the scientific developments from the early middle ages to the twentieth century that illuminated the once murky depths of oceanography.Tracing the transition from descriptive to mathematical analyses of the oceans, Eric Mills examines sailors' and explorers' observations of the oceans, the influence of Scandinavian techniques on German-speaking geographers, and the eventual development of shared quantitative practices and ideas. A detailed and beautifully written account of the history of oceanography, The Fluid Envelope of Our Planet is also an engaging account of the emergence of a scientific discipline.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: The Fluid Envelope of Our Planet -- 1 The Way of the Sea: Knowledge of Oceanic Circulation before the Nineteenth Century -- 2 Groping through the Darkness: The Problem of Deep Ocean Circulation -- 3 Boundaries Built with Numbers: Making the Ocean Mathematical -- 4 Evangelizing in the Wilderness: Dynamic Oceanography Comes to Canada -- 5 'Physische Meereskunde': From Geography to Physical Oceanography in Berlin, 1900B1935 -- 6 'Découverte de l'océan': Monaco and the Failure of French Oceanography -- 7 Slipping away from Norway: Dynamic Oceanography Comes to the United States -- 8 Facing the Atlantic and the Pacific: Dynamic Oceanography Re-emerges in Canada, 1930-1950 -- 9 Studying The Oceans and the Oceans -- Appendix: Textbooks of Physical Oceanography -- Notes -- References -- Index