预订 Nature’s Clocks

     Radioactivity is like a clock that never needs adjusting writes Doug Macdougall It would be hard to design a more reliable timekeeper In Nature s Clocks Macdougall tells how scientists who were seeking to understand the past arrived at the ingenious techniques they now use to determine the age of objects and organisms By examining radiocarbon (C 14) dating the * known of these methods and several other techniques that geologists use to decode the distant past Macdougall unwraps the last century s advances explaining how they reveal the age of our fossil ancestors such as Lucy the timing of the dinosaurs extinction and the precise ages of tiny mineral grains that date from the beginning of the earth s history In lively and accessible prose he describes how the science of geochronology has developed and flourished Relating these advances through the stories of the scientists themselves James Hutton William Smith Arthur Holmes Ernest Rutherford Willard Libby and Clair Patterson Macdougall shows how they used ingenuity and inspiration to construct one of modern science s most significant accomplishments a timescale for the earth s evolution and human prehistory

    Macdougall, Doug,Doug Macdougall is Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences at SDoug Macdougall is Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences at SDoug Macdougall is Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences at SDoug Macdougall is Professor Emeritus of Earth Sciences at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of Californiacripps Institution of Oceanography, University of Californiacripps Institution of Oceanography, University of Californiacripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, and currently resides in Edinburgh, Scotland. H, San Diego, and currently resides in Edinburgh, Scotland. H