The age of everything : how science explores the past

by Matthew Hedman, 1974-

2007

Status

Available

Call number

CC78 .H44

Publication

Publisher Unknown

Description

Taking advantage of recent advances throughout the sciences, Matthew Hedman brings the distant past closer to us than it has ever been. Here, he shows how scientists have determined the age of everything from the colonization of the New World over 13,000 years ago to the origin of the universe nearly fourteen billion years ago.Hedman details, for example, how interdisciplinary studies of the Great Pyramids of Egypt can determine exactly when and how these incredible structures were built. He shows how the remains of humble trees can illuminate how the surface

User reviews

LibraryThing member MusicalGlass
Hedman begins with a fascinating chapter on the passage of time recorded by Mayan hieroglyphics and another on the wobble in earth’s orbit indicated by minute variations in the orientation of Egyptian pyramids—both in a way illustrating the ingenuity and imagination of pre-scientific societies.
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The more modern time-measure techniques introduced next sound as poetic as they are scientific: tree rings, magnetized volcanic rock, sunspots, glacial ice cores, deep-water coral. Finally, radiocarbon and other isotope-derived methods take us into astronomical and cosmological realms, demystifying stars and deep space—but with humanity and our natural world so far away, the feeling is cold and empty, and, in Hedman’s telling, wholly lacking in poetry.

Victory Storm King Stout
Stella Artois
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Barcode

34662000634771
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