- Email: [email protected]
Sir Edward Appleton
Journalof Atmosphericand TerrestrialPhysics, 1973, Vol. 35, pp. 1019-102 2. PergamonPress. Printedin NorthernIrelsnd
BOOK REVIEWS
Sir Edward Appleton, by Ronald
Clark.
Pergamon
Press,
Oxford
(1972) xiii
+ 240 pp. Price
$4.00. THE NAME Appleton
will for ever be associated with the ionosphere, and-as Sir Bernard Love11 suggests in the preface to this biography-he himself might well have wished it to be so. However, outstanding though his contributions were to knowledge of the Earth’s upper atmosphere, these were but one aspect of a man of wide interests and of equally wide abilities. It is pretty certain that Appleton would have made a great success of whatever he chose to do and his ultimate dedication to ionospheric studies, although partly determined by external events, wm, in the end, the result of a shrewd personal choice. Appleton’s scientific and administrative career grouped itself into five parts-two periods in Cambridge alternating with two in London, followed by the last (and longest) period in Edinburgh. After graduating at Cambridge in 1914, he started his research career in X-ray analysis, working in the Cavendish with Lawrence Bragg who, years later, “wondered whether, if it had not been for the war, Appleton would not have become one of the leading crystallographers.” However, World War I intervened, and the Royal Corps of Signals initiated him into the rapidly growing science of radio. In the 5 years he spent back at Cambridge immediately after the war, Appleton successfully developed two lines of radio research-one concerned with the non-linear characteristics of thermionic valve circuits, the other with radio atmospherics. These topics might well have profitably occupied him for the rest of his scientific career, but it was not to be so. Towards the end of 1924 he carried out his famous pioneer radio experiments on the ionosphere and quickly proceeded to seal his path to fame by recognising that this discovery held far greater promise than anything else he was doing. Thereafter, as far as research was concerned, it was to be the ionosphere and the ionosphere alone. In two of his subsequent appointments (which between them occupied 27 years), his duties were mainly administrative, and although he was a very competent administrator, his fist love w&s undoubtedly ionospheric research. Throughout these long years, in what he used to refer to as the ‘administrative desert’, he saw to it that periods were regularly spent at ‘scientific oases’-by which he really meant discussions on the ionosphere. Appleton was blessed with rare ability, with great energy and personal drive. He had a very warm and deep understanding of human virtues and failings, a rich sense of humour and a fund of good stories. Ronald Clark’s concise and excellent biography provides a well-balanced portrait of this very distinguished scientist son of Yorkshire. W.
Edited by B. M. McCormac. Price Dfl. 115 (U.S. $37.60).
Earth’s Magnetospheric Processes. (1972) 417 pp.
D. Reidel,
J. G. BEYNON
Dordrecht,
Holland
IN THE Preface it is stated that “This book contains the lectures presented at the Summer Advanced Institute and Ninth ESRO Summer School which was held in Cortina, Italy, August 30 The book contains some valuable, clearly written, introductory lectures to September 10,197l.”
1019
BOOK REVIEWS
Sir Edward Appleton, by Ronald
Clark.
Pergamon
Press,
Oxford
(1972) xiii
+ 240 pp. Price
$4.00. THE NAME Appleton
will for ever be associated with the ionosphere, and-as Sir Bernard Love11 suggests in the preface to this biography-he himself might well have wished it to be so. However, outstanding though his contributions were to knowledge of the Earth’s upper atmosphere, these were but one aspect of a man of wide interests and of equally wide abilities. It is pretty certain that Appleton would have made a great success of whatever he chose to do and his ultimate dedication to ionospheric studies, although partly determined by external events, wm, in the end, the result of a shrewd personal choice. Appleton’s scientific and administrative career grouped itself into five parts-two periods in Cambridge alternating with two in London, followed by the last (and longest) period in Edinburgh. After graduating at Cambridge in 1914, he started his research career in X-ray analysis, working in the Cavendish with Lawrence Bragg who, years later, “wondered whether, if it had not been for the war, Appleton would not have become one of the leading crystallographers.” However, World War I intervened, and the Royal Corps of Signals initiated him into the rapidly growing science of radio. In the 5 years he spent back at Cambridge immediately after the war, Appleton successfully developed two lines of radio research-one concerned with the non-linear characteristics of thermionic valve circuits, the other with radio atmospherics. These topics might well have profitably occupied him for the rest of his scientific career, but it was not to be so. Towards the end of 1924 he carried out his famous pioneer radio experiments on the ionosphere and quickly proceeded to seal his path to fame by recognising that this discovery held far greater promise than anything else he was doing. Thereafter, as far as research was concerned, it was to be the ionosphere and the ionosphere alone. In two of his subsequent appointments (which between them occupied 27 years), his duties were mainly administrative, and although he was a very competent administrator, his fist love w&s undoubtedly ionospheric research. Throughout these long years, in what he used to refer to as the ‘administrative desert’, he saw to it that periods were regularly spent at ‘scientific oases’-by which he really meant discussions on the ionosphere. Appleton was blessed with rare ability, with great energy and personal drive. He had a very warm and deep understanding of human virtues and failings, a rich sense of humour and a fund of good stories. Ronald Clark’s concise and excellent biography provides a well-balanced portrait of this very distinguished scientist son of Yorkshire. W.
Edited by B. M. McCormac. Price Dfl. 115 (U.S. $37.60).
Earth’s Magnetospheric Processes. (1972) 417 pp.
D. Reidel,
J. G. BEYNON
Dordrecht,
Holland
IN THE Preface it is stated that “This book contains the lectures presented at the Summer Advanced Institute and Ninth ESRO Summer School which was held in Cortina, Italy, August 30 The book contains some valuable, clearly written, introductory lectures to September 10,197l.”
1019