Gillian Turner PhD - North Pole, South Pole: The Epic Quest to Solve the Great Mystery of Earths Magnetism

Praise for North Pole, South Pole

A wonderful read that put me in mind of Dava Sobels books. This is an insightful and lively account of a complex subject that deftly weaves the story of Earths magnetic field through vignettes of physicists, mathematicians, and explorers through the ages, culminating in the persuasive observations of modern paleomagnetists and theorists.

Dennis Kent, Board of Governors Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University

[An] engaging appreciation of science at work discovering the mysteries of magnetism.

Kirkus Reviews

A fantastic story, highly readable.

Simon Lamb, author of Devil in the Mountain

A compelling narrative of the two-thousand-year scientific struggle to unlock the innermost secrets of the cosmic speck of dust we call home. Engagingly written in a lively style accessible to all.

M. E. (Ted) Evans, Professor Emeritus, Department of Physics, University of Alberta

A wonderful, joyful, lucid book. Turner is a natural storyteller.

Ted Irving, Geological Survey of Canada

Clearly written and beautifully illustrated.

Sir Paul Callaghan, Alan MacDiarmid Professor of Physical Sciences, Victoria University

A fascinating read. Kenneth Creer, University of Edinburgh

Gillian Turner has a great gift for writing about science, and personal knowledge of many of the modern giants of geomagnetism. This book will enthuse anyone, young or old, about the physics of the world around them.

Ted Lilley, Australian National University

In recent years, many very good books for interested non-scientists have been published: Richard Dawkinss Climbing Mount Improbable and The Ancestors Tale, Stephen Jay Goulds The Lying Stones of Marrakech, and Dava Sobels Longitude and The Planets, to name some of them. North Pole, South Pole... is a worthy addition to that list....Gillian Turner has a great story to tell, and she tells it well.

The Press (New Zealand)

North Pole, South Pole

The Epic Quest to Solve the Great Mystery of Earths Magnetism

Gillian Turner

North Pole, South Pole: The Epic Quest to Solve the Great Mystery of Earths Magnetism

Copyright Gillian Turner, 2010, 2011

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio,
television, or online reviews, no portion of this book may be reproduced, distributed,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording,
or information storage or retrieval system, without the prior
written permission of the publisher.

The Experiment, LLC
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New York, NY 10001-6425
www.theexperimentpublishing.com

First edition published by Awa Press, Wellington, New Zealand. First North American
edition published by arrangement.

The Experiments books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2010934222
E-book ISBN 978-1-61519-132-1

Cover design by Michael Fusco | michaelfuscodesign.com

Typeset by Jenn Hadley, Wellington, NZ
Author photograph by Robert Cross, Victoria University of Wellington Image Services
Cover illustrations: Magnetic variations at sea, an engraving from De Magnete by
William Gilbert, 1600 (Science and Society Picture Library). The Earths figure
and dimensions, a drawing from The Beauty of the Heavens by Charles F. Blunt, 1849
(Mary Evans Picture Library).

Manufactured in the United States of America

First printed January 2011
Published simultaneously in Canada

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my family
my parents, my husband, my children

Ampre, Andr-Marie (17751836). French mathematician and physicist; founder of electrodynamics.

Brunhes, Bernard (18671910). French geophysicist who, with Pierre David, discovered lava flows and baked clays magnetized in the opposite direction to Earths magnetic field.

Bullard, Edward (Teddy) Crisp (19071980). English geophysicist; early researcher on dynamo theories of Earths magnetic field.

Coulomb, Charles-Augustin de (17361806). French military engineer who discovered the inverse square laws of electrostatic and magnetostatic attraction and repulsion.

Creer, Kenneth (born 1925). Member of the group of Cambridge paleomagnetists who, in the 1950s, discovered apparent polar wander, contributing to the confirmation of polarity reversals and continental drift; later professor of geophysics at Edinburgh University.

dEntrecasteaux, Bruni (17391793). French explorer who, with Elisabeth de Rossel, made the first measurements of relative geomagnetic intensity.

Elsasser, Walter Maurice (19041991). American geophysicist; early researcher of geomagnetic dynamo theories.

Faraday, Michael (17911867). English experimental physicist and chemist; director of the Royal Institution; discoverer of electromagnetic induction.

Gauss, Carl Friedrich (17771855). German mathematician instrumental in establishing a worldwide network of geomagnetic observatories, and developing first mathematical representation of geomagnetic field.

Gellibrand, Henry (15971636). Professor of astronomy at Gresham College, London, who discovered that declination, the angle of deviation of a compass needle from true north, changes with timethe phenomenon known as geomagnetic secular variation.

Gilbert, William (15441603). Sixteenth-century experimentalist; physician to Queen Elizabeth I, and author of the classic work De Magnete.

Glatzmaier, Gary (born 1949). American solar physicist and geophysicist; with Paul Roberts, developed the first internally consistent computer simulation of a magnetohydrodynamic, self-exciting dynamo in the Earths outer core to undergo spontaneous polarity reversals.

Graham, George (16751751). English compass-maker who discovered the geomagnetic diurnal (daily) variation.

Graham, John American paleomagnetist who, in the mid twentieth century, designed methods to test the authenticity and antiquity of magnetization in rocks; a skeptic of field reversal theory.

Halley, Edmond (16561742). English astronomer and explorer who produced the first chart of magnetic declination, covering the Atlantic Ocean, and developed a four-pole theory of Earths magnetic field.

Hansteen, Christopher (17841873). Norwegian astronomer and physicist who advocated and elaborated on Edmund Halleys four-pole theory of Earths magnetic field, and produced the first charts of geomagnetic intensity (isodynamic charts).