Nature's clocks : how scientists measure the age of almost everything

著者

書誌事項

Nature's clocks : how scientists measure the age of almost everything

Doug Macdougall

University of California Press, c2008

  • : cloth

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注記

Includes bibliographical references (p. 257-263) and index

HTTP:URL=http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/fy0804/2007046955.html Information=Table of contents

内容説明・目次

内容説明

'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 best 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.

目次

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Chapter 1. No Vestige of a Beginning ... Chapter 2. Mysterious Rays Chapter 3. Wild Bill's Quest Chapter 4. Changing Perceptions Chapter 5. Getting the Lead Out Chapter 6. Dating the Boundaries Chapter 7. Clocking Evolution Chapter 8. Ghostly Forests and Mediterranean Volcanoes Chapter 9. More and More from Less and Less Appendix A. The Geological Time Scale Appendix B. Periodic Table of the Chemical Elements Appendix C. Additional Notes Glossary Resources and Further Reading Index

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