A PLANET CALLED EARTH

by George Gamow ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 26, 1963

Doctor Gamow, along with Arthur Clarke, is the New Science's liveliest, most ncent popularizer. His current opus, an extension of his 20 year old classic Biography of the Earth, is a fast-moving, far-ranging, very much au courant interpretation of the latest, flashiest forays into astrophysics, geophysics and biochemistry; the information's exact, the readability's intense; in its pages, then, the layman can exult. With a magician's ease and also a magician's talent for surprise, Doctor Gamow investigates the earth's age, the theories of planetary origins, the various spheres: tropo, strato, iono and the brand new magnetosphere or ""empty space"", seismologist Mohorovicic's discontinuity principle better known now as the Mohole Project or deep-ocean drilling, the Van Allen radiation belts and the Earth-Sun electromagnetic relationship, the reciprocal Earth-Moon gravitational force, the earth's changing face through tectonic activity and erosion, the mountain-building epochs via the ""book of sediments"", etc. He also appends a few future-glimmers: Earth's got 5 billion years to go but we as a species won't be around that long. Its likely life flourishes on billions of other Milky Way planets but interstellar communication seems unlikely; the secret of controlled thermonuclear reactions is the next breakthrough in the evolving atomic revolution. A handy guide.

Pub Date: April 26, 1963

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1963

Categories: NONFICTION