Probing the sky with radio waves : from wireless technology to the development of atmospheric science / Chen-Pang Yeang.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Yeang, Chen-Pang.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Radio waves--Research--History.

Radio waves.

Atmospheric physics--History.

Atmospheric physics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (360 p.)

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

By the late nineteenth century, engineers and experimental scientists generally knew how radio waves behaved, and by 1901 scientists were able to manipulate them to transmit messages across long distances. What no one could understand, however, was why radio waves followed the curvature of the Earth. Theorists puzzled over this for nearly twenty years before physicists confirmed the zig-zag theory, a solution that led to the discovery of a layer in the Earth's upper atmosphere that bounces radio waves earthward-the ionosphere. In Probing the Sky with Radio Waves, Chen-Pang Yeang documents this monumental discovery and the advances in radio ionospheric propagation research that occurred in its aftermath. Yeang illustrates how the discovery of the ionosphere transformed atmospheric science from what had been primarily an observational endeavor into an experimental science. It also gave researchers a host of new theories, experiments, and instruments with which to better understand the atmosphere's constitution, the origin of atmospheric electricity, and how the sun and geomagnetism shape the Earth's atmosphere. This book will be warmly welcomed by scholars of astronomy, atmospheric science, geoscience, military and institutional history, and the history and philosophy of science and technology, as well as by radio amateurs and electrical engineers interested in historical perspectives on their craft.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction: From Propagation Studies to Active Sensors

2. Theorizing Transatlantic Wireless with Surface Diffraction

3. The U.S. Navy and the Austin-Cohen Formula

4. Synthesis with Atmospheric Reflection

5. Radio Amateurs Launch the Short-Wave Era

6. From the Skip Zone to Magneto-Ionic Refraction

7. British Radio Research and the Moments of Discovery

8. Pulse Echo, CIW, and Radio Probing of the Ionosphere

9. Consolidating a General Magneto-Ionic Theory

10. Handling Microphysics

11. A New Way of Seeing the World

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780226034812

022603481X

OCLC:

844939319