Monday, August 23, 2010

Michaelmas Term 2010: Meteorology and Climate Change

We meet on Mondays from 7.30 to 9pm in the Skillicorn and Bamford rooms at Homerton College. Many of the selections we have chosen are available online. Copies of the harder-to-obtain items will be placed in our box file in the Whipple Library. Organised by Daniel Friesner (Science Museum) and Melanie Keene (Homerton College). See this blog for news and updates; email Melanie to join our dedicated mailing list. All welcome!

18th October (in the Skillicorn room): Extreme events

Daniel Defoe, The Storm (1704), especially Chapter III, "Of the Storm in General", pp. 26-36 in the Penguin Classics edition. To find this chapter online, search for the phrase "before we come to examine the damage" on google books.

1st November (in the Bamford room): Clouds


Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Poems in honour of Luke Howard (1820-22). Translated in Kurt Badt, John Constable's Clouds, trans. Stanley Godman (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1950), pp. 12-14.
To find this online, search for the phrase "walks and flickers" on google books.

John Ruskin, The Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century: two lectures delivered at the London Institution (1884). Lecture 1, 4th February, especially the beginning and end of the lecture, pp. 1-8 and 29-44 on Internet Archive http://www.archive.org/details/thestormcloudofn00ruskuoft pp. 1-6 and 20-30 on Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/20204

15th November (in the Skillicorn room): Weather control

Eliza Leslie, "The Rain King; or, A Glance at the Next Century". Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 25, July 1842, pp. 7-11. To find this online, search for the phrase "so many new stars had been added" on google books.

Carl Barks, "The Master Rainmaker". Walt Disney's Comics & Stories #156 (Vol. 13, No. 12, September 1953). Reprinted in Walt Disney's Donald Duck, No. 284 (Series II), May 1994. Also reprinted (in black and white) in The Journal of Weather Modification, Vol. 23, No. 1, April 1991, pp. 90-100.

Daniil Granin, Idu na grozu (1961). Translated as Into The Storm (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965) pp. 33-39, 182-187, 197-203, 239-249, 254-257, 307-309.

29th November (in the Skillicorn Room): Cooling down and warming up

Arthur C. Clarke, "The Forgotten Enemy". King's College Review, December 1948, pp. 20-24.
Reprinted in various collections, including SF: Author's Choice 4 and The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke. To hear the story, followed by a discussion, go to http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2008/10/a-bite-of-stars-a-slug-of-time-and-thou-episode-16/

J. G. Ballard, "The Drowned World". Science Fiction Adventures, #24 (Vol. 4, January 1962), pp. 2-56, especially pp. 2-25 and 55-56. (This is the original novella, which was afterwards expanded into a novel.)

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